Kevin Myres on working class mindsets.

[Purple]

Focus on the job or the post, not the person. In our current environment and system, no cleaner or kitchen hand is going to earn a living wage. So when one kitchen hand gets promoted, the problem just moves to his or her replacement - the new person getting the crappy wage.

This is where socialism is so half-baked and not thought through. It is not the responsibility of the employer to provide a living wage for an employee as this will vary depending on the needs and circumstances of said employee. The employer should pay what the market dictates and if society in general deems it desirable that the employee should have more income it should be provided through the welfare system.
People should never be paid more than they are worth to an organisation (be they CEO’s or cleaners).

The notion of a living wage is just more equality of outcome "social justice", AKA communism.

 

[micmclo]

I was never fan of these working class/middle class generalizations

And until recently a tradesman would earn far, far more then a solicitor for example, a job which involves years of exams and qualifications.
And I thought in a republic all citizens were equal

Be honest now: when you book an Irish plumber or electrician, do you really expect him (and tragically, it's always a 'him') to turn up on time? Are you all that surprised if he doesn't turn up at all? But then you might get a phone call a couple of days later saying, sorry, he got tied up on another job, so he'll pop round tomorrow. Ask him why he didn't phone, and he'll throw you a few porkies.

Hell yeah!
And even if you got a good tradesman you'd be worried they'd drop you for a bigger job.
It was done to me, ok supply and demand but if you tell somebody you'll do the job then you can't just drop someone.

If there is one good thing to come out of the recession it's that a lot of this messing from cowboy tradesmen won't be acceptable anymore.
My letterbox gets lots of flyers from tradesmen, they must be desperate for business so I haggle them down aggressively to get a good price.

 

[Purple]

And until recently a tradesman would earn far, far more then a solicitor for example, a job which involves years of exams and qualifications.

Solicitors have to train for years and pass exams as well you know.

 

[micmclo]

Solicitors have to train for years and pass exams as well you know.

Was my post unclear?
Actually it wasn't, maybe you should read it again

Of course they do, go to college and do the FE-1 exams and serve the two slots in an office before they are qualified

 

[ajapale]

..and serve the two slots in an office before they are qualified

Do you mean "serve the two sloths..?"

 

[micmclo]

What you do mean sloths?

PPC1 and PPC2, two slots

I'm having to explain every post I make

 

[Purple]

Was my post unclear?
Actually it wasn't, maybe you should read it again

Of course they do, go to college and do the FE-1 exams and serve the two slots in an office before they are qualified

Trades people have to train for years and pass exams as well. Your post had a whiff of elitism.

 

[micmclo]

Never said they didn't.
And my first post was I wasn't fan of labeling people into different classes based on their job so I can't see how I'm being elitist.
In a republic everyone is supposed to be equal, well that's my belief
Elitist am I?

Think I'll give this thread a miss, can't be back to explain my post again for a 4th time

Trades people have to train for years and pass exams as well.

Solicitors have to train for years and pass exams as well you know.

I don't remember posting otherwise, I don't see your point or where I need to be corrected

 

[Chris]

You end up in the same position as many low and middle earners - your family get sick and you are unable to afford doctors fees and drug fees for anything but the most serious of conditions. If you are unlucky enough to have a serious condition, you might die while waiting for treatment. But to be honest, you would probably have died on the medical card too.

What you are highlighting is a failure of the governments health system, the very institution that you put so much faith in when it comes running the economy. I've brought up the following calculation before:
Ireland spends about €3,500 per person on the health system, which as you said gives you long waiting lists, you still pay for GPs, dentists, opticians, prescriptions.
Switzerland has a private only health insurance system with public and private hospitals competing for the same patients (no taxes are collected to pay for health care). An adult pays about €250 per month or €3,000 per year for basic insurance. For this you have practically no waiting lists for even the simplest procedures, GP visits, some dental treatment and all prescriptions. And this in a country with higher wages and cost of living than Ireland. This is the most damning indictment of government incompetence, and superiority of private sector services.

I didn't mention kids, so I'm not sure I get your question about kids?

That's why I did. You only get FIS if you have kids. There are many unemployed that do not have kids.

Not true. FIS has no poverty trap. If you earn more, you do indeed lose the equivalent FIS, but you don't end up worse off. If you do have the opportunity to earn more (through overtime or promotion or whatever), there is no disincentive to progressing.

FIS is not limited to one year. If you still qualify after one year, you have to reapply. http://www.welfare.ie/EN/Publications/SW22/Pages/10HowlongdoestheFISpaymentlast.aspx

Here's a quick calculation that shows the disincentive of FIS for a low paid worker with 1 child:
20h*€10/h=€200/w
€506-€200=€306 (€506 is the threshold for 1 child family)
€306*0.6=€183.6
€183.6+€200=€383.6/w (income including FIS)
40h*10/h=€400
€506-€400=€106
€106*0.6=€63.6
€400+€63.6=€463.6
for and extra 20 hours work you get €80 or €4/h. While this is not as bad as getting the same for 25 hours minimum wage as for doing nothing on the dole, it is still a serious lack of incentive. As Mpsox already mentioned, there is a lack of work ethic in this country and combine that with a lack of incentives to actually work more and you're on a road to disaster.

It is of course possible for people of exceptional talent and commitment to develop and build a career or a business from modest roots. But most people don't have that talent, and get frustrated at the lack of fairness and equity in the system. They look around them and see those who get to move up the ranks because Daddy owns the business, or because they went to the 'right' school or they play on the 'right' rugby team. We are a long, long way off a fair and balanced system where talent and commitment bring fair rewards. But even if we had this perfect system with equal opportunities for everyone to develop, this still misses the point. Focus on the job or the post, not the person. In our current environment and system, no cleaner or kitchen hand is going to earn a living wage. So when one kitchen hand gets promoted, the problem just moves to his or her replacement - the new person getting the crappy wage.

You do not need some exceptional talent to get a career started or a job that pays closer to the average income. And most people do have enough brains, but are lacking work ethic and incentive. There are plenty of colleges that offer night courses for diplomas and degrees, and they are not prohibitively expensive.

And the majority of people that do well in their careers do so because of merit, not because of aristocracy or relations. There is no such thing as inherent unfairness, and people will always blame someone or something else if their work isn't rewarded as much as they think it should be. If someone gets a promotion, it's because of some bias or preferential treatment; if bad singers earn more than an excellent paramedic, that's unfair; the list goes on, but this completely ignores the fact that wages are directly related to productivity and the supply and demand for labour.

The fact that a cleaner with essentially no skills earns very little is due to the fact that there is an abundance of people with no skills. And even when they manage to upskill, there are plenty of people in line with no skills that will take that job. Paying people this undefinable "living wage" for not having a skill does not solve the problem; it's simply all carrot and no stick.

If the education system actually worked and reduced the amount of unskilled workers, then unskilled wages would increase, while skilled wages would decrease. This would be a perfect, market driven distribution of income, without direct government intervention. But instead of governments highlighting their own failures and incompetence, they go on to appropriate ever more taxes to provide more welfare services, that provide less incentive.

 

[cork]

I grew up in a rural area where none of what Myers is talking about would apply..

I did as well.

There is a lot of school snobbery in the cities.

 

[Purple]

Never said they didn't.
And my first post was I wasn't fan of labeling people into different classes based on their job so I can't see how I'm being elitist.
In a republic everyone is supposed to be equal, well that's my belief
Elitist am I?

Think I'll give this thread a miss, can't be back to explain my post again for a 4th time





I don't remember posting otherwise, I don't see your point or where I need to be corrected

Relax micmclo, I was trying to be funny. Obviously it didn't work!

 

[Latrade]

I agree with all of the points he makes

I have to ask: what points does he make? I honestly see none other than some very dubious links between "scangers" (my term) and punctuality.

First, I thought the Irish slightly relaxed view to punctucality was celebrated, you know that's just how it is, you get used to it.

Basically, once every so often someone lets us down. It could be anyone in any trade or profession. But no, a working class person is late in fixing the plumbing and that's indicative of every tradesperson, every working class person, every deprived region of the country. As a result, all of Roddy Doyle's work (except the only true to life one where it's about domestic abuse) is rubbished...Q.E.D. What? Is he serious? That life in a working class area is only about guns, drugs and dad kicking 7 cans out of the family? It's wrong that someone shows that people in a working class area actually are just normal people?

So every working class household pays no attention to education. Every one. Roddy Doyle's characterisation is all bull, no working class area really has cute hooers and cheeky characters, Kev says in reality it's all drugs, guns, staying away from school and getting beaten up if you do your homework.

Again, just what point exactly is he making? That the true ruination of the country was tardiness of the working classes? He names estates in Dublin, estate I have good friends living in and if I just listened to him I wouldn't go near them without an armed guard. Except, those same estates, I see I far greater sense of community than my "middle class" estate. I see neighbours chatting to neighbours, doors open and people popping in for a cuppa. I see kids hitting the books and sports and socialising with neighbours. I see none of that on my estate, it's a good day if a neighbour even acknowledges my presence when I put the bin out. Maybe it's just the streets my friends live on and every other street it's guns, drugs and domestic violence.

Yup, Kev makes a real good point there.

 

[Purple]

The smartest person I ever met was the woman who minded our first child. She got married and had children young. Her husband was (and still is) a waster who hardly worked a day in his life. He is happy to scam the system and sit on his backside. Because of this she worked as a cleaner early each morning and late each evening and spent the rest of her time making sure that her two sons did well in school and, despite the influence of their father and neighbours, grew up appreciating education and hard work. She did their homework with them, cooked their meals and made sure they got to after school activities. Both of them have done very well for themselves.
She is now in her 50’s and despite having (in my opinion) huge intellectual capabilities she doesn’t have the self confidence to go back to education. Her husband laughed at the idea and ridiculed her for even thinking about it. In my experience going to school with children from the areas that Myers is talking about and later working with people from such areas there is still a social stigma associated with wanting education.

I fully accept that it was the supposed great and good that were running things when Ireland hit the rocks but to ignore the anti-educational bias amongst large sections of the population is not going to get us anywhere. So called Working Class pride; “I have nothing, my kids will have nothing and I’m proud of that.”
Poverty is more a social problem than an economic one. While we pretend otherwise we won’t solve out poverty issued.

 

[Latrade]

I fully accept that it was the supposed great and good that were running things when Ireland hit the rocks but to ignore the anti-educational bias amongst large sections of the population is not going to get us anywhere. So called Working Class pride; “I have nothing, my kids will have nothing and I’m proud of that.”
Poverty is more a social problem than an economic one. While we pretend otherwise we won’t solve out poverty issued.

I don't buy that for a second and I don't buy that this is Myer's point. You really think that all, or even a majority of working class people are proud that their kids have nothing? Really? Sure, there are some, but Myers is indicating this is the mindset of the majority and that's bull. It's bull because of all the working class families I know (including my own) the vast majority of parents want to give everything they can just so their kids have something and don't have the life they did as children and that includes education.

I see no pride whatsoever in the majority of people who saw their parents struggle when they were young and I certainly don't see that transferred to their kids. I do see an acknowledgement that the odds are against them from the start, like they can't afford the best pre-school, schools, tutors, etc and so immediately their kids are going to have to work that bit harder to compete. I see acceptance that it'll be harder to get to college. I see an acceptance that there's still prejudice in certain "middle class" professions where the right school, the right college and the right “postcode” still counts. Some occasional working class upstart gets through the system, but they’relabelled as having a chip on their shoulder. To insinuate that the vast majority of working class parents are happy to see their kids do nothing and claim off the state is just pathetic and abhorrent.

And are we to believe that every middle class person take's their child's education seriously? That their only motivation is their child? I call bull on that too. Here's my own sweeping generalisation, but the vast majority of that stuff is competing with other parents and bragging rights, nothing to do with the child at all. Its look how great I am I've put my child through the best school and how brainy my genetic material is. "My son the engineer".

Myers has no point at all in his article, nothing. The only point he makes is that Roddy Doyle has only ever written one accurate representation of being working class.

 

[Purple]

I don't buy that for a second and I don't buy that this is Myer's point. You really think that all, or even a majority of working class people are proud that their kids have nothing? Really? Sure, there are some, but Myers is indicating this is the mindset of the majority and that's bull. It's bull because of all the working class families I know (including my own) the vast majority of parents want to give everything they can just so their kids have something and don't have the life they did as children and that includes education.

I can only speak from my own experience growing up and, as an adult, working in a manual trade in a lower socioeconomic area. I see people who would rather spend their money in the pub and the bookies than on their children’s education. No the majority of people but a large enough proportion to perpetuate the cycle of chronic underachievement.
I do think that the boom years have left us with a legacy of people from poorer areas wanting more for themselves and their children. I have posted here before that in my opinion these are the people who have been betrayed most by our leaders over the last 10 years.

I see no pride whatsoever in the majority of people who saw their parents struggle when they were young and I certainly don't see that transferred to their kids. I do see an acknowledgement that the odds are against them from the start, like they can't afford the best pre-school, schools, tutors, etc and so immediately their kids are going to have to work that bit harder to compete. I see acceptance that it'll be harder to get to college. I see an acceptance that there's still prejudice in certain "middle class" professions where the right school, the right college and the right “postcode” still counts. Some occasional working class upstart gets through the system, but they’relabelled as having a chip on their shoulder. To insinuate that the vast majority of working class parents are happy to see their kids do nothing and claim off the state is just pathetic and abhorrent.

A friend of mine grew up in Tallaght, very close to where I was born. His parents sent him and his brother to a private school. They scrimped and saved to do so. The people who gave them a hard time about it weren’t the other kids in his school or the parents of those children, it was their neighbours. I remember his getting abused by his friends father because supposedly he thought he was too good for the local school.
Lots of people aren’t happy with their lot in life but they resign themselves to the fact that it’s helpless and there’s nothing they can do about it. When somebody else shows them that’s not the case they are resented.

And are we to believe that every middle class person take's their child's education seriously? That their only motivation is their child? I call bull on that too. Here's my own sweeping generalisation, but the vast majority of that stuff is competing with other parents and bragging rights, nothing to do with the child at all. Its look how great I am I've put my child through the best school and how brainy my genetic material is. "My son the engineer".

I agree to a certain extent there; nobody is perfect. Personally I find the whole “Working Class” and “Middle Class” tags very distasteful in a Republic.

 

[Latrade]

But those examples are just examples of being a lazy human, not exclusive examples of a particular socio-economic banding.

I've seen the "lazy" working class, the criminals (petty and major) and the scroungers. But I've seen far far more parents who have more or less given the shirt off their backs to make sure their kids had what they didn't. And living around the part of the world I do (epitome of upper middle class) I see whole generations where everything is handed to them by Daddy/Mummy. I see the same sense of "right to behave that way" and attitude in those circles. I see similar issues when it comes to schooling, for resentment see isolation, remarks and judgement because some can't afford the right school. It's a different side of the same thing.

Maybe it's a chip on my shoulder, but to read that wholesale knocking of a group of people just because a plumber is late is the kind of ill informed snobbery I expect on an internet forum, not a journalist, even Myers.

 

[Purple]

But those examples are just examples of being a lazy human, not exclusive examples of a particular socio-economic banding.

I've seen the "lazy" working class, the criminals (petty and major) and the scroungers. But I've seen far far more parents who have more or less given the shirt off their backs to make sure their kids had what they didn't. And living around the part of the world I do (epitome of upper middle class) I see whole generations where everything is handed to them by Daddy/Mummy. I see the same sense of "right to behave that way" and attitude in those circles. I see similar issues when it comes to schooling, for resentment see isolation, remarks and judgement because some can't afford the right school. It's a different side of the same thing.

Maybe it's a chip on my shoulder, but to read that wholesale knocking of a group of people just because a plumber is late is the kind of ill informed snobbery I expect on an internet forum, not a journalist, even Myers.

I really haven’t seen that sort of snobbery against people who struggle financially where I live (middle-income suburbia) in fact about 8 years ago a family in the area were in danger of losing their house due to illness related income loss and a bunch of neighbours got together and paid their mortgage for over a year and a half. I wasn’t involved; I only heard about it by accident this year.
I do think that there is less sense of community in more affluent areas but that’s because nowadays both parents are working and chances are few people who live there were born in the area.

 

[shnaek]

Personally I find the whole “Working Class” and “Middle Class” tags very distasteful in a Republic.

Distasteful, and worthless - for when people speak of "Working Class" they tend to mean people on social welfare. The class system, if it ever existed in Ireland, does not exist any more. We have the rich and the poor, and most of us somewhere inbetween.

 

[censuspro]

Poverty line

Actually neither. My claim is that welfare programs have not reduced the amount of people living below the poverty line, because the rules of welfare programs are such, that as soon as you work you lose your entitlements. And in many cases work will pay less than welfare, so there is no incentive to work. Unless you have a job you will not learn new skills or even be able to get a carreer off the ground.

Can anyone tell me what the definition of the poverty line is?

 

[Purple]

Can anyone tell me what the definition of the poverty line is?

Those earning less than 60% of median income. It is, in this country, a measure of income distribution rather than income itself.

That said the Office of Social Inclusion (Orwellian name or what!) offers a more comprehensive definition.