31st January 2013, 09:18 PM
BAJR Wrote:As has been said for many years...I qte agree. BUT
FAME talks to xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx? er.. Prospect? ... um? is that representative?
FAME can't negotiate with itself it needs someone to talk to. Unionise !
I think the problem is the other way round. Prospect has been trying to talk to FAME, but FAME can't get itself together to talk for itself -herding cats anyone? (Although I do agree that higher union membership and representation would make things easier and better on many fronts for both employees and employers).
So IfA is stuck having to do a job that isn't really its job and taking all the flak, whilst those employers who are f*cking everyone over laugh at us all from the sidelines. But despite that, IfA has said that it is committed to seeing pay as an integral part of standards and to keeping the minima, it didn't duck that issue, and it did put up minima by 3.1% -the highest of the 6 options on the table.
Don't get me wrong -its far from ideal what happened yesterday, and oddly I didn't agree with scrapping compulsory minima, but the legal issues once raised have an inevitable and hideous momentum, and although they might argue about the legal advice, in the end almost every organisation would have followed it.
Having accepted you can't set a minima due to cartel issues (and BTW the Law Society are allowed to because they are outside the laws that apply to mere mortals) then where are you? You have to try and construct a mechanism, clumsy as it is at present, to keep everyone from just cutting wages, because as we all know: bad archaeologists will cut wages, and good archaeologists will work for them -and say 'thankyou'. That is what the IfA is trying to do, to make it as hard as possible to pay sub minima within the law, and if you do pay sub minima and want to stay an RO then its only because you give so much other extra benefits that the job is comparable, and essentially it is less costly to just pay people more.
As we have said from the outset, the proof will be in creating an effective way to make sure that anyone trying to sneak in sub minima wages gets stamped on unless their 'extras' mean that they really are a good employer. That will be down to all of us. I'd like some method of identifying those that pay sub minima, a name and shame or visible indicator of compliance so everyone can see who is bad and who is good -this used to be in place so shouldn't be hard to reinstate. I think additionally that all ROs should have to apply for permission to pay below minima in advance -so its not a retrospective audit, but done before any change in wage. There's a lot to sort out, but I think we are in a better place than we could have been, we just need to seriously keep on the case.
Oh, and the big ROs playing a long game? Really? Some of them haven't the cash flow to pay the milkman.