Yes my first wife was a florist, she worked for the council. When not doing flowers for civic occasions and the register Office weddings she worked in the general parks department and nursery. The was a chap there they called Jimmy Atco- he cut grass. He did it all day every day in the season, bowling greens, cricket pitches etc. He was very good at it. Very similar to George, at other times he could be given other simple jobs to do. She left the parks and went into office work. About 2 years later, it was all shut down, the nursery was sold off, all the work contracted out. No idea what happened to Jimmy.
I can remember in my teens, Harold McMillan saying, "You've never had it so good."
Personally, I couldn't argue with that, as I was living at home with my parents who were both working, I had a choice of six jobs when I left grammar school, chose the one with the best pay and bought my first car with the money I'd saved from my Saturday and holiday job while still at school. Petrol was 20p a gallon and beer 10p a pint. (London prices) Didn't have a care in the World.
I can only remember being hard up when my future wife and I moved into a flat in Soho for a year as the rent was only slightly less than my pay! Fortunately she earned nearly twice as much as I me as she was a shorthand typist.
Everything on the job front improved after that.
I was able to comfortably retire just short of my 58th birthday
It all went downhill for most after the Millennium, regardless of which party was in power.
Yes my first wife was a florist, she worked for the council. When not doing flowers for civic occasions and the register Office weddings she worked in the general parks department and nursery. The was a chap there they called Jimmy Atco- he cut grass. He did it all day every day in the season, bowling greens, cricket pitches etc. He was very good at it. Very similar to George, at other times he could be given other simple jobs to do. She left the parks and went into office work. About 2 years later, it was all shut down, the nursery was sold off, all the work contracted out. No idea what happened to Jimmy.
ah, the joys of Privitisation. Asset strip it and flog it off. When the tories sold off the Royal Ordinance factories to GEC ( if I remember correctly ) they immediately sold off excess land for more than they'd paid for the whole thing. Yeah, that was great value for a state owned asset.
I was a child of the Thatcher years. My parents lived through the absurd interest rates, but were still able to house us, in the south east, on my dad's modest wage alone. And then after their separation, two households,on my dad's, supplemented by mum's new secretarial job. My generation has been lucky with interest rates, but it doesn't make up for the house price inflation that for the younger ones, and those of my age who weren't lucky enough to get on the ladder in the early 2000s, has put ownership out of reach and enriched landlords that make their rental lives hell. That is the Thatcher legacy.
and the destruction of our manufacturing industries.
The unions had destroyed the competitiveness of the manufacturing sector long before Maggie came to power. She broke the stranglehold the unions had on business and working people. I certainly believe she stayed too long and the Conservative party was right to get rid of her.
@KT53, that was true in some sectors, but not all. In the example I gave, the nursery was run on strictly commercial lines. When they were doing jobs like pricking out or potting on, they had a time and motion woman check how they organised it to make sure it was as efficient as possible. I visited the nursery once at a weekend, there were several glass houses empty. Her boss explained they would previously have been full of wallflower, spring bedding etc. He said I can buy wallflower from Holland for 1/2p a plant, the compost alone costs that, it's cheaper to buy them in. It's widely known the Dutch government heavily subsidised the Hort industry. This was one reason why my ex left, learned shorthand and typing, and went into office work. She could see the way things were going. Successive governments have been ideologically wedded to market forces, the trouble is we haven't had a level playing field, and we've ended up with a race to the bottom.
@Hostafan1 "What about those , who, with the best
will in the world, no matter how hard they try, are not able to
undertake a " high skilled " job? What happens to them?"
Well I put in this thought. Before minimum wage was brought in, most factories employed what would unkindly (and now not PC ) be called the village idiot. I knew one such man. Lets called him George. He was only able to follow one instruction at once. He didn't think for himself. He could print his name,(slowly) he had learned to do that because he had to sign for his wage packet. He worked at the same factory as his brother, a few hundred yards from where they were born. His brother was quite highly skilled, and paid a good wage. George usually swept the floor and occasionally would be sent on short errands with a note, fetching and carrying. He did that from the age of 14 until he was 65, and gained his pension. By this point he was living with his brother, his parents had died. When Georges brother died he had to go into sheltered accommodation. George was always wanting to be useful, so the warden would give him a job, like take this prescription to the chemist. We would ask him to sit down, and when it was ready, George would be instructed to take it back to the warden. The warden would then give him another little job, and again he would be instructed to go back to base. Similar to his working life, but no longer paid, but still feeling useful to his community. The crux of this is that George was never paid a huge wage, probably half what most of those around him got. From an employers point of view, he did half a jobs worth, and got half a wage. He did however have a feeling of usefullness and the pride of being employed. Bring in the minimum wage, all those jobs are wiped out at a stroke. Instead the government has to pay incapacity benefit or whatever for all his life. Someone has to look after him, more cost. George was physically capable of a simple job, but not mentally able to do much, but he was always willing.
Now he would be on the scrapheap from when the schools finished with him, all his life a burden on the state.
Sadly things have been going that way for some years. Remploy used to be the main employer of those with physical or mental problems who quite simply were not capable of functioning effectively in the mainstream workplace. Some politician or other, in their great wisdom, decided all Remploy employees could be absorbed into the mainstream. It was never going to work, but people in that grouping have no real voice to support them.
The final factories closed in 2013. Closures had started during the Labour administration but certainly weren't stopped by the Conservates so neither can adopt the moral high ground on the matter.
My own brother suffered severe head injuries in a car crash but was eventually able to return to his previous employer in a role not dissimilar to that described of George, although he could be given quite complex tasks as long as it was repetitive work. Any change to his work routine would cause him to panic. He was finally made redundant from that job and never found paid work again.
What sickened me though was that the Disability Officer at the Job Centre managed to find him a number of 6 month placements funded by the Job Centre, but none of them ever converted to permanent jobs. One place actually told him he was doing a great job but they wouldn't keep him on because they could get somebody in 'free' from the JobCentre. That was the last job he ever had because he couldn't see the point of trying to prove his worth.
but the millions lifted out of virtual slave labour when Minimum wage was brought in my surely be better for society overall?
Absolutely this. This is the problem with the idea of 'philanthropic industry'... it's not really.
The minimum wage certainly did help a lot of people, but even the minimum wage had unintended consequences. Many employers saw it as being the figure they would stick at and wages in some areas stagnated too. That's part of the reason we now have a low wages economy.
The move to ‘care in the community’ for people who had previously lived in sheltered accommodation was a disaster for some, too. The supposed support was often minimal, and I had patients who really went off the rails as far as diet was concerned. Living on chocolate biscuits and cakes in a shared flat might have been great fun, but the health and dental problems that ensued were pretty hard to correct. Still, I suppose someone decided that this could save money, without taking into account the non financial cost.
The problem with Care in the Community was that the scheme was dreamt up by folk who had no real understanding of the problems facing some folk, but it sounded good.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
The problem with Care in the Community was that the scheme was dreamt up by folk who had no real understanding of the problems facing some folk, but it sounded good.
That sounds like policies from Governments of all colours over the decades.
Posts
When the tories sold off the Royal Ordinance factories to GEC ( if I remember correctly ) they immediately sold off excess land for more than they'd paid for the whole thing.
Yeah, that was great value for a state owned asset.
The unions had destroyed the competitiveness of the manufacturing sector long before Maggie came to power. She broke the stranglehold the unions had on business and working people. I certainly believe she stayed too long and the Conservative party was right to get rid of her.
Successive governments have been ideologically wedded to market forces, the trouble is we haven't had a level playing field, and we've ended up with a race to the bottom.
The minimum wage certainly did help a lot of people, but even the minimum wage had unintended consequences. Many employers saw it as being the figure they would stick at and wages in some areas stagnated too. That's part of the reason we now have a low wages economy.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
That sounds like policies from Governments of all colours over the decades.