holywell farmer
Member
- Location
- holywell, north wales
Good working conditions
What would attract you to a job?
- Thread starter Headless chicken
- Start date
- Location
- Fife
We have very very different ideas of a good wage...
Graduate careers may have £21k as a starting point for entry level positions, but they quickly rise.
£18k isn't a good wage.
- Location
- Northern Ireland
What's gross labouring wage for 45 hrs making?
- Location
- Fife
A building site labourer will be on £10/HR at least. This translates to £450 a week, or £22,500 pa.
Id say a skilled herdsman will have a larger effect on company profit than a skilled HGV driver. HGV drivers are on £28k+.
Even "scraping sh!t and putting cups on cows" is not minimum wage work when one factors in the financial consequences of putting antibiotic milk in the tank. If you're on collections every 2 days a contaimination could cost you 0.54% of your annual production. Add in the unpleasant working conditions (handling raw animal faeces, risk of physical harm from kicking livestock) and the antisocial hours and £10/hr PAYE should be the bare minimum.
- Location
- Fife
You laugh, but UK agriculture needs more workers. The pool of interested farmers' children is not big enough. Brexit threatens to restrict the currently utilised pool of EU migrants.
UK ag will need to attract high calibre British workers. To do so it will need to compete with other industries on an equal footing. Working long hours and/or split shifts in unpleasant conditions for a pittànce because "it's a lifestyle" isn't going to cut it...
Your posts are normally very good. But that one.....
Don't go down the whole antibiotic milk in the tank road.
The Romanian in the ginsters factory that portions the diced Meat into a pasty should be on a profit share, as if he accidently put a bit of glass in a pasty and ginsters were sued for xxxxxxxx
Don't go down the whole antibiotic milk in the tank road.
The Romanian in the ginsters factory that portions the diced Meat into a pasty should be on a profit share, as if he accidently put a bit of glass in a pasty and ginsters were sued for xxxxxxxx
If everyone thinks they are worth 28k a year plus a house, it's not only UK ag that's f**ked
- Location
- Fife
I'm not saying everyone is worth, or should expect, £28k plus a house. But I do think milkers are worth more than minimum wage.
I'm currently milking on 2 dairy farms. At least one of them has had difficulty holding on to staff. On one of them a relief milker put antibiotic milk in the tank resulting in £6k worth of milk being destroyed.
Broken glass isn't part of the production process for a Ginsters pasty. Harvesting milk unfit for human consumption is part of a normal everyday milking.
The ag company with the best chance for career progression and promoption I've worked for was the indoor pigs. There were various departments on each unit, various units on each site and various sites within the group. It was easy to see how one could build a career from stockman to general manager. Despite this, staff turnover was phenomenally high. It was a minimum wage job in poor conditions with antisocial hours (0500 starts). The infra structure was desperate for investment and the job had some deeply unpleasant aspects. I remember during my initial interview the manager looked at my CV and asked what I was doing applying. His exact words were "agriculture is a last post of call for many people". From anecdotal conversation with non ag friends this appears to be a prevelant attitude. Many people view employed ag positions as "dead end".
I feel as an industry we must do what we can to counter and reverse this.
As a herdsman on a typical dairy farm what chance is there for career progression within the company? Even your Ginsters Romanian has the chance of career progression. One of the current Samworth Brothers (who make Ginsters) board members started working for the company hand crimping pasties on the production line.
I'm currently milking on 2 dairy farms. At least one of them has had difficulty holding on to staff. On one of them a relief milker put antibiotic milk in the tank resulting in £6k worth of milk being destroyed.
Broken glass isn't part of the production process for a Ginsters pasty. Harvesting milk unfit for human consumption is part of a normal everyday milking.
The ag company with the best chance for career progression and promoption I've worked for was the indoor pigs. There were various departments on each unit, various units on each site and various sites within the group. It was easy to see how one could build a career from stockman to general manager. Despite this, staff turnover was phenomenally high. It was a minimum wage job in poor conditions with antisocial hours (0500 starts). The infra structure was desperate for investment and the job had some deeply unpleasant aspects. I remember during my initial interview the manager looked at my CV and asked what I was doing applying. His exact words were "agriculture is a last post of call for many people". From anecdotal conversation with non ag friends this appears to be a prevelant attitude. Many people view employed ag positions as "dead end".
I feel as an industry we must do what we can to counter and reverse this.
As a herdsman on a typical dairy farm what chance is there for career progression within the company? Even your Ginsters Romanian has the chance of career progression. One of the current Samworth Brothers (who make Ginsters) board members started working for the company hand crimping pasties on the production line.
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Headless chicken
Member
- Location
- West Wales
I think the issue is not that farmers don't want to pay a decent salary it's simply that they can't. there isn't a hell of a lot of money floating about in agriculture ATM
linga
Member
- Location
- Ceredigion
I would be quite happy to pay an employee the same as I pay myself.
edit; but I should add that the employee would be unlikely to think it was enough
edit; but I should add that the employee would be unlikely to think it was enough
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- Location
- Fife
Do you mean exactly the same cash as you receive? Or a cash equivalent of your total package (eg wage, house, bills, car etc).
Chimera
Member
- Location
- North Wales
You should read the sheperd's wage thread[emoji16][emoji16]
- Location
- Northern Ireland
This is all very nice in fairy tale land, where people should all be better paid.
The reality is that farms were melting away as they took 17ppl. What maddens me about rises in the minimum wage is that we are not able to pass this cost on our customers. What actually happens is that that I as the farm owner have to take every extra pound I give an employee away from the pounds that I give myself, as there aren't any extra pounds coming in to pay for these communist style schemes.
Things like this raise costs, add financial pressure in an already cut throat industry, and act as a disincentive to family farms who continue to see more of their relatively modest incomes carved away.
The reality is that farms were melting away as they took 17ppl. What maddens me about rises in the minimum wage is that we are not able to pass this cost on our customers. What actually happens is that that I as the farm owner have to take every extra pound I give an employee away from the pounds that I give myself, as there aren't any extra pounds coming in to pay for these communist style schemes.
Things like this raise costs, add financial pressure in an already cut throat industry, and act as a disincentive to family farms who continue to see more of their relatively modest incomes carved away.
I dipped in to a sheep thread over the weekend, Somone reckoned he could produce a lamb for 18 to 40 quid. That's like saying you can produce milk for less than 20p.
Loads. More than you're giving us credit for. Attitudes and times are changing.
I offered our apprentice the chance of a job or a career. He chose career and hes delighted. Start off by milking and scraping, then we'll do more advanced things such as heat detection, grass budgeting and gradually building up his skills and experience to become my herd manager. It will take a couple of years but any training programme would. I know I'm not the only one doing this neither so don't herald as something special, this is happening on hundreds of units.
The guys making a success out of farming aren't barking orders at thick headed skivvies these days. They're business people in wellies.
- Location
- Fife
That's very enlightened of you. I commend you for your excellent approach to investing in your people.
I don't mean at all to diminish the business acumen of farmers, but many of them are not good people managers. Also, with some farms having 3 generations of family working on them, is there space for employed managers on any but the biggest units?
I would agree that it must be frustrating especially in what is an uncertain time for agriculture, but as employee its incredibly demotivating to work for some one who begrudges paying you. Which is one of the reason I'm now looking to move out of dairying.
linga
Member
- Location
- Ceredigion
I was being a little bit flippant really but the answer is either
Reference your assertation that HGV drivers are on £28,000/year.May be in the South East,certainly not here or when the fert truck driver( Currie International) driver was on £8/ hr,ot £8.02hr,Scottish drivers on less,overseas drivers on minimum wage and well as for risk he was carrying Ammonium Nitrate!!!!!