Immigration Street

[Searle]

It is irrelevant whether you condemn the employer or not, the simple fact in that all the time there are people willing to work for a pittance then things are not going to improve. Look at how many zero hours contracts there are, it's just slavery.

Zero Hours Contracts is not slavery when used right.

 

[TheKnightWho]

I didn't realise companies could just dictate the economy! They set the salary, but they also want to remain competitive.

Yes, it's true that immigrants drive down wages in certain areas, but if we're going to compete on the global marketplace unfortunately we're going to have to accept that. Artificially keeping wages high just results in catastrophes like with mining in the 80s. It's all very well to say we should subsidise this and that, employ British workers and the like, but if no-one is paying for your business then how are you going to fund any of this?

Britain is not the most important country in the world, and unfortunately we're going to have to accept that we're actually not all that big. Denying that fact will prove devastating in the long-run.

(Plus, what entitles you to a better wage than someone from Poland other than the luck of where you were born? But that's an entirely different debate.)

 

[Antman]

There are so many factors in play here, one cannot make such statements. For instance, it is possible that people choose low paid work because it gives them all the income they require , without the hassle of a higher paid role. There is a myth that everyone needs more money, and getting that is a strong motivator. Basically, any employer will pay the lowest remuneration at which she can get a consistent supply of workers of sufficient quality to carry out the tasks; if training is a significant cost, the need to retain the workforce would tend to raise the level of remuneration. Employers are not, and should not be, in the business of charity, welfare or social engineering.

I wouldn't disagree with any of that, so yes in a nutshell migrant workers are driving dowm wages
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Zero Hours Contracts is not slavery when used right.

What do you mean by used right?
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but surely if you want things to improve you should condemn the employer then . And on a more practical note given that our condemnation on a forum for railway enthusiasts means nothing in the grand scheme of things we should make efforts to pursue legal action against employers who do offer employees below the minimum wage .

So if you were an employer and London Jack applies for a job but he wants at least the London living wage but Polish Jacek who has applied for the same job is willing to do it for considerably less who are you going to offer the job too?

 

[TheKnightWho]

I wouldn't disagree with any of that, so yes in a nutshell migrant workers are driving dowm wages
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What do you mean by used right?
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So if you were an employer and London Jack applies for a job but he wants at least the London living wage but Polish Jacek who has applied for the same job is willing to do it for considerably less who are you going to offer the job too?

So the incentive should be to improve people's skills - not to artificially raise wages.

 

[Oswyntail]

I wouldn't disagree with any of that, so yes in a nutshell migrant workers are driving down wages....

Not necessarily migrants. Anyone who is willing to do a job for the remuneration on offer.
Artificial means of fixing wages - like the minimum or "living" wage - help no one in the long run. They simply make employing workers more expensive, thus driving up costs and eventually prices. Low-paid jobs may themselves provide enough remuneration for some to meet their requirements.

 

[Tetchytyke]

It is irrelevant whether you condemn the employer or not, the simple fact in that all the time there are people willing to work for a pittance then things are not going to improve.

I think you're being too simplistic. The issue is not "immigration" or "immigrants", the issue is the way any market operates.

Diamonds, as an example, are a relatively common stone and relatively inexpensive to mine. To get around this, diamond miners and traders (e.g. de Beers) restrict the amount of diamonds they choose to mine at any one time. Because supply is artificially restricted, prices remain high. OPEC do exactly the same thing; much of the reason drop in oil prices is because the Saudis are refusing to cut production for their own political reasons.

You see this in the labour market too. Access to jobs is kept deliberately low, as potential employees will compete with each other on price. The market is also deliberately kept insecure; zero-hours contracts are designed to keep employees frightened about their job, which again stimulates competition on price between employees (it also conveniently transfers the financial risk of over-staffing from the employer to the employee).

If you believe that wages will rise once you send the Poles home, you'll be in for a sorry shock. Our economy is designed in such a way that full employment is bad for business, and the number of jobs will contract if the population goes down.

So the incentive should be to improve people's skills - not to artificially raise wages.

Not really.

The amount you get paid is about power dynamics, not the skills you have. A middle-management civil servant in Treasury will comfortably earn double what my partner (who is a clinical psychologist, a job which requires a doctorate) earns, largely because the NHS is subordinate to the Treasury.

It is obvious that the CEO of a bank is not 300 times more skillful than a cashier in a local branch, but he is 300 times more powerful. Investment bankers are paid so much because they control so much, not because they are so much more skillful than the rest of us.

Competition for jobs means that powerful people tend to be skillful at getting powerful jobs. But we can't all have powerful jobs, therefore you'll have just as much wage disparity even if we all end up educated to doctoral standard. Inequality levels in the UK are pretty much back to where we were in 1850, despite the fact that even the lowest-skilled people here are significantly more skilled than their Victorian equivalent.

 

[WessexEclectic]

Democracy falls down at the point where you have to persuade stupid people to vote for you......

The thing is which people are the 'stupid' ones...

 

[TheKnightWho]

Not really.

The amount you get paid is about power dynamics, not the skills you have. A middle-management civil servant in Treasury will comfortably earn double what my partner (who is a clinical psychologist, a job which requires a doctorate) earns, largely because the NHS is subordinate to the Treasury.

It is obvious that the CEO of a bank is not 300 times more skillful than a cashier in a local branch, but he is 300 times more powerful. Investment bankers are paid so much because they control so much, not because they are so much more skillful than the rest of us.

Competition for jobs means that powerful people tend to be skillful at getting powerful jobs. But we can't all have powerful jobs, therefore you'll have just as much wage disparity even if we all end up educated to doctoral standard. Inequality levels in the UK are pretty much back to where we were in 1850, despite the fact that even the lowest-skilled people here are significantly more skilled than their Victorian equivalent.

I don't think it's productive to conflate skills and the effort that you put into something. There are quite a lot of problems with doing that, but the relevant one here is the fact that clearly what we want to be training people in is how to become an effective workforce who can also stand up for themselves in the workplace. It's got nothing to do with some intrinsic "value" of their work.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Artificial means of fixing wages - like the minimum or "living" wage - help no one in the long run. They simply make employing workers more expensive, thus driving up costs and eventually prices.

Partly yes and partly no.

Artificially fixing wages too high would simply bring in hyperinflation. The cost of staple goods would rise to meet the new higher wage. We could pay £1m/hour as a minimum wage; we'd all be billionaires, but a loaf of bread would cost £350,000, so it wouldn't actually change anything.

But setting a baseline does help, as it helps take the worst excesses of competition out of the employment market.
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I don't think it's productive to conflate skills and the effort that you put into something.

I don't think I did. I said the skills you have, or indeed how hard you try, is largely irrelevant to how much you get paid.

I know the Social Darwinists among us like to believe that the poor are stupid and/or lazy and that the wealthy are intelligent and/or dedicated. It is comforting for the wealthy to think they are there on merit and not through fortune.

 

[muz379]

So if you were an employer and London Jack applies for a job but he wants at least the London living wage but Polish Jacek who has applied for the same job is willing to do it for considerably less who are you going to offer the job too?

As an employer and a business owner you are going to want to do it as cheaply as possible of course I understand that, just like many things in business however there are ways of doing things cheaper that are illegal . Lets say im a waste disposal company , I might want to just fly tip all the waste I collect outside your house rather than paying to get rid of it all . However I cant do that or if I do it and get found out I will get fined . Thats why I said the minimum wage should be enforced and should be set at a limit that people can afford to live because afterall if businesses had their way they would pay even less than what polish jecek wants to get paid .

 

[Searle]

A relevant study today:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...nt-or-reduced-wages-study-finds-10075047.html

 

[TheKnightWho]

I don't think I did. I said the skills you have, or indeed how hard you try, is largely irrelevant to how much you get paid.

I know the Social Darwinists among us like to believe that the poor are stupid and/or lazy and that the wealthy are intelligent and/or dedicated. It is comforting for the wealthy to think they are there on merit and not through fortune.

I don't disagree that it's irrelevant to how much you get paid. What I'm saying is that we should be aiming to lift people out of poor pay by training them and investing in schools/universities/apprenticeships/whatever. People skills are a skill like any other.

 

[Tetchytyke]

I don't disagree that it's irrelevant to how much you get paid. What I'm saying is that we should be aiming to lift people out of poor pay by training them and investing in schools/universities/apprenticeships/whatever. People skills are a skill like any other.

I'm genuinely confused. I'm not sure if you're agreeing or disagreeing

I'll be more clear: if everyone has a brilliant skillset, you'll still have the CEO on millions and the cleaner on pennies. You'll just have a really highly educated cleaner.

 

[Oswyntail]

... A middle-management civil servant in Treasury will comfortably earn double what my partner (who is a clinical psychologist, a job which requires a doctorate) earns, largely because the NHS is subordinate to the Treasury. ....

That is utter b******s. Of course, we do not know what you mean by "middle management", or what grade your partner is on, but I think you would be hard pressed to provide accurate figures to support your case. [And, as for the "requirements" of clinical jobs in the NHS, the way that has gone over the years is a lesson in what inflation means]

 

[Arglwydd Golau]

[And, as for the "requirements" of clinical jobs in the NHS, the way that has gone over the years is a lesson in what inflation means]

I know that this might be going 'off topic' but I don't quite understand what you mean. If you can explain, I might even agree with you!

 

[ralphchadkirk]

[And, as for the "requirements" of clinical jobs in the NHS, the way that has gone over the years is a lesson in what inflation means]

Now that's b*****ks!

 

[Oswyntail]

I know that this might be going 'off topic' but I don't quite understand what you mean. If you can explain, I might even agree with you!

"Nurses" started the ball rolling by claiming theirs was a graduate entry profession; so all nurses had to get a degree; so all "super nurses" had to get a further degree. So all the other health professions started arguing that they should be better qualified than nurses, so decided that further degrees were required for entry level. And so on. The irony being that the degree level nurses decided they were too grand for entry-level nursing, so they invented a new "Sub-nurse" structure that did not require graduate entry. The net effect? A more costly NHS.

 

[ralphchadkirk]

I agree at a basic bed bath and commode level a degree isn't needed, but nurses are taking on more and more responsible positions, which require undergraduate and postgraduate study. Unless of course you want to be treated by someone who's gone on a three week training course, because I don't.

Degree educated healthcare staff is a good thing. In my field, professionals are doing things that 5 - 10 years ago wouldn't have even been in the realm of junior doctors, as well as moving away from protocols and guidelines to independent practise where up to masters level study is essential to be able to practise safely.

 

[Arglwydd Golau]

"Nurses" started the ball rolling by claiming theirs was a graduate entry profession; so all nurses had to get a degree; so all "super nurses" had to get a further degree. So all the other health professions started arguing that they should be better qualified than nurses, so decided that further degrees were required for entry level. And so on. The irony being that the degree level nurses decided they were too grand for entry-level nursing, so they invented a new "Sub-nurse" structure that did not require graduate entry. The net effect? A more costly NHS.

Ok, thanks for the clarification. I had a feeling that you might be thinking of this particular issue. Whilst I have some sympathy for your viewpoint (I was a nurse myself), to my mind your conclusion is not necessarily correct and this discussion will really be off topic....now if you really want to know about cost, consider Clinical Psychologists (sorry Arctic Trolls' partner), in my experience they were always 'last in and first out', cost a fortune (the time they spent making sure that they received a massive pay hike during the last pay restructuring was criminal and managing them was, as they say, like herding cats!

 

[me123]

"Nurses" started the ball rolling by claiming theirs was a graduate entry profession; so all nurses had to get a degree; so all "super nurses" had to get a further degree. So all the other health professions started arguing that they should be better qualified than nurses, so decided that further degrees were required for entry level. And so on. The irony being that the degree level nurses decided they were too grand for entry-level nursing, so they invented a new "Sub-nurse" structure that did not require graduate entry. The net effect? A more costly NHS.

So do you believe that nurses do not need a degree? I assume that you are aware that nursing is not just about personal care and cleaning (most of these needs are now met by auxiliary nurses/nursing assistants, who do not require degree level qualifications). Professional nursing is also about clinical care of patients, and I strongly believe that educating nurses, and indeed all members of the multidisciplinary team, is absolutely essential to the delivery of high quality healthcare.

This is particularly true in the current day and age, where nurses are becoming increasingly autonomous in many areas of medicine. District nurses in the community are often the only people who see patients with chronic conditions day in and day out, and rely on their clinical experience and knowledge to formulate a management plan. Specialist nurses in areas such as acute pain, diabetes, multiple sclerosis and many other fields will take on further education to specialise in their field of interest, which will often see them practising independently, with the ability to prescribe in their field and create individual management plans for their patients. MacMillan nurses are highly trained and experienced individuals in the fields of oncology and palliative care, and are worth their weight in gold. In addition to specialising in symptomatic management in palliative care, they ultimately act as a single first point of contact for a patient (usually available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year) during what is a very distressing and confusing time for patients. Some nurses in coronary and intensive care units have additional skills which can extend to independent advanced life support, including endotracheal intubation. Nurse practitioners often form the backbone of the hospital at night teams, and are often now the initial point of contact for patients in hospital who are deteriorating, with nurses in these roles expected to deliver the same care that a junior doctor would. Emergency department nurses are increasingly charged with assessment of minor injuries, including requesting and interpreting radiological investigations and instigating the appropriate management. Trained scrub nurses in theatres are expected to create and maintain a sterile field for operative procedures, and are often required to assist in surgery.

Even on the ward level (which is what I'm assuming you were actually referring to when you asserted your displeasure at nursing degrees), nurses are expected to recognise clinically deteriorating patients, which requires a basic understanding of physiology and pathophysiology. In fact, I can assure you that the best nurses are the ones that don't rigidly stick to the protocol, but recognise the importance of numbers on an observation chart and can respond appropriately. Nurses are encouraged to widen their skill sets, to include amongst other skills urethral catheterisation and peripheral venous cannulation. Charge nurses on the ward are responsible for managing an entire clinical team, including their colleagues, auxiliary nurses, and frankly even the doctors!

The above is just a very small sample of the wide and varied world of clinical nursing in the 21st century.

Anyone who suggests that nurses "don't need degrees", frankly have little to no understanding of the role of the modern nurse.

 

[Clip]

I watched call the midwife the other day but she didnt have a degree.

 

[me123]

I watched call the midwife the other day but she didnt have a degree.

...and?

Things have changed a lot since the 1950s. Needless to say that Call the Midwife (the TV show) cannot be taken as a completely accurate historical documentary. However, nursing has advanced, and nurses are expected to be more autonomous than they were in the 50s. In particular, you will notice that the nurses and midwives revere the doctor in the 1950s as the font of all knowledge, whereas today the nurses and midwives would have greater autonomy in their role

Midwifery in particular is almost entirely separate from nursing, and midwives work almost entirely independently in their highly specialised field. Midwives have some particular challenges to their practice, up to and including supporting various home births, which I think must be the ultimate challenge for a professional midwife.

 

[Oswyntail]

...
Anyone who suggests that nurses "don't need degrees", frankly have little to no understanding of the role of the modern nurse.

Of course, some nurses need qualifications equivalent to degree level, because of their responsibilities, as you say. But that is not all of them by any means, probably not approaching the majority. By insisting on degree level as entry level, though, the nursing organisations caused havoc. But you cannot really blame them, as many "professions" were trying the same, with predictable results not only on wage inflation, but in overstretching teaching institutions and increasing student drop-out rate.
To my mind, for nursing, as with most professions, the most appropriate training and qualification is "on the job", with several levels of entry point according to aptitude and experience. Old fashioned, I admit, but flexible and tailored to the needs of the job.

 

[me123]

I would agree that nursing is best learned by actual experience on the wards and in the various other settings that nurses practice. Indeed, much of nursing and midwifery training at university and colleges is delivered in this manner.

However, a key underpinning of the basic clinical sciences is certainly beneficial, not only in the delivery of healthcare, but also in terms of further professional development, leading onto further qualifications and specialisation if that is what the nurse wants to do. The best nurses know and understand what they're doing, thanks in part to ongoing professional development and a key understanding of the basic clinical sciences underpinning their practice. I think that without proper regulated training in a further eduction environment, you're more likely to train nurses who are simply protocol driven and haven't developed the knowledge and skills to go on to further training.

Similarly, I could argue that the best education for doctors is also "on the job training", however I don't think anyone is arguing that medical school should be abolished.

Besides, I really hope that you're not suggesting that the costs continuing professional development (CPD) are merely a burden on the taxpayer. CPD offers healthcare professionals the opportunity for career development (an opportunity available in the vast majority of jobs), as well as supporting the delivery of healthcare by experienced and educated staff. Costs of training in the NHS are an investment in people, and an investment in future healthcare.

 

[ralphchadkirk]

But that is not all of them by any means, probably not approaching the majority.

I disagree. Band 5 nurses have considerable autonomy and responsibility, partly, thanks to degree education. Locally to me, a band 5 nurse is the gatekeeper to the Heart Attack Centre which requires a fair amount of knowledge of physiology and the ability to interpret investigations.

"professions"

A bit of snobbery going on there?

 

[me123]

I disagree. Band 5 nurses have considerable autonomy and responsibility, partly, thanks to degree education. Locally to me, a band 5 nurse is the gatekeeper to the Heart Attack Centre which requires a fair amount of knowledge of physiology and the ability to interpret investigations.

Absolutely. If you look in a standard A&E Department, High Dependency Unit, Coronary Care Unit, or Intensive Care Unit, you'll see that the standard nursing staff in these areas have very advanced and specialised skill sets. I don't believe that they could acquire these without basic clinical science training in a university or college setting.

For example, coronary care nurses will be able to interpret electrocardiographs, which requires an understanding of the conducting system of the heart (anatomy & physiology). They will be able to identify a deteriorating patient, requiring again knowledge of cardiovascular physiology and pathophysiology to identify the signs and understand what is causing the deterioration and how to manage it in the short term. They administer various cardiac medications, and need to understand the pharmacology behind their function to ascertain if the medicine is having benefit, or indeed if it may be causing a harmful effect.

You cannot get this knowledge without an understanding of core science. And I do not think that you can understand core science simply by shadowing nurses on a ward - you need to be taught this in a formal setting.

(For those not in the know, a "Band 5" nurse is the "entry-level" point for professional nurses registered with the Nursing & Midwifery Council, although most nurses in a hospital setting do practice at a Band 5 level).

BTW, nursing is the very definition of a profession. I have come across this excellent definition, into which I believe that nursing is a perfect fit.

An occupation whose core element is work based upon the mastery of a complex body of knowledge and skills. It is a vocation in which knowledge of some department of science or learning or the practice of an art founded upon it is used in the service of others. Its members are governed by codes of ethics and profess a commitment to competence, integrity and morality, altruism, and the promotion of the public good within their domain. These commitments form the basis of a social contract between a profession and society, which in return grants the profession a monopoly over the use of its knowledge base, the right to considerable autonomy in practice and the privilege of self-regulation. Professions and their members are accountable to those served and to society.

SR Cruess et al; "Profession": a working definition for medical educators; Teach Learn Med, 2004 16(1) pp74-6

 

[Clip]

...and?

Things have changed a lot since the 1950s. .

It was made last year though.

 

[laseandre]

It was made last year though.

So was the latest series of Downton Abbey, and I don't see people living in manor houses and wearing Edwardian clothing. It is something known as fiction, where the things represented on screen are not actually taking place for real as they are filmed.

In the case of Call the Midwife, it is set in an era where nurses are not as independent as they are nowadays. Thus their representation on screen reflects that.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

It's also indisputable that they're driving wages down and house prices up

You are being far too simplistic here.

What drives house prices up is a mismatch between supply and demand.

Demand is driven by changes in population levels (caused not only by immigration but also by emigration, births and deaths), and also very significantly by people wanting to live in smaller households, and buy-to-let landlords using houses as investments. In a few parts of the country - notably central London, you also need to factor in people buying houses as investments without any intention to have anyone living in them.

Supply is restricted by shortage of housebuilding skills (which immigration is to some extent helping to alleviate), planning policies, and - so far as I can tell - also by hoarding of land by commercial organizations hoping to make a profit, and (apparently, politically motivated) restrictions by the Government on the ability of local authorities to finance housebuilding.

There are lots of factors in there, and picking out just one of them (eg. immigration) and making out that is exclusively the reason for house price increases is very misleading. It's arguable that if successive Governments had properly planned to build sufficient houses and/or to take measures to free up supply-side restrictions, then house prices would not have risen, even with current levels of immigration.

The situation on wages is also far more complex than you've made out, but I see lots of other people have pointed that out in more detail, so I won't bother

 

[Tetchytyke]

I think you would be hard pressed to provide accurate figures to support your case.

I bet I wouldn't, given that the lowest tier Policy Advisors within HM Treasury start on £27,500 a year.

And, as for the "requirements" of clinical jobs in the NHS, the way that has gone over the years is a lesson in what inflation means

Much of that is in nursing, and it really depends what you want from your nurses. Many middle to higher level nurses have responsibilities you wouldn't have dreamed of giving them in the 70s or 80s, including the ability to prescribe and actually treat minor injuries. Midwifery, too, has seen this; the move within the NHS is towards midwife-led birthing units. If you're going to leave a midwife in charge, you've got to make sure they're competent. That means professional qualifications.

Modern nursing is about far more than wiping someone's backside, it has taken away many lower-level responsibilities from junior doctors. And a senior nurse, say a Band Six, will be cheaper than a junior doctor.

To my mind, for nursing, as with most professions, the most appropriate training and qualification is "on the job", with several levels of entry point according to aptitude and experience. Old fashioned, I admit, but flexible and tailored to the needs of the job.

Most of the training is "on the job"; during the degree/postgraduate diploma course a big chunk of the course is placement. And then when a nurse qualifies additional qualifications are "on the job".

It comes down to what you want as a core level of knowledge from a nurse, and what you want a nurse to do. If you want a nurse to only deal with bedpans then they don't need a degree, but if you want them to be dispensing medicine then really you do.