Workers wanting more than Managers

[kiwi pom]

"Asset rich farmers", this pisses me off, so for generations the same farm has toiled away scrimping and saving and now we are penalised for out efforts FU , i might as well bang out 15 kids and live of the sub - of having kids. LET ME BE CLEAR no one goes to the supermarket and looks at the price of milk or bread they just pick it up if it was 50p more as long as the one they walk out of the shop with is the lowest they are happy.

Why would it pee you off? If grandad worked his arse off and eventually the farm ended up in the grandchild's hands, then they have done very well out of someone else's work.
Plenty of bigger farms today are there because workers grafted their whole lives to make it successful, they were paid of course but certainly didn't end up with the same level of wealth.
Sitting on an asset worth several million does change your life. In all probability you're not going to sell any of it BUT if things go to s**t you have a good back up plan. Selling just a bit of land can get you out of a lot of holes.
Even if you're only making the same as a minimum wage employee, your problems are very different to theirs.

 

[glasshouse]

What do you think would happen in agriculture if wheat was 600 quid a ton?
It certainly wouldn't stay the same for long, rents would double land owners would be keen to take land back, everyone would plough up ground for wheat production and inputs and machinery costs would rise.
Then there's the effect it would have on other areas of farming, particularly livestock farmers, they wouldn't be buying much feed wheat for 600 quid a ton, wheat demand would collapse.

It happened in 73
Again in 2007
Its about due

 

[toquark]

It’s never long before inputs and ancillary costs rise along with commodity prices. They’ll blame whatever they can to justify it…COVID, brexit, steel price, labour shortages but just wait for them to put their prices down when their inputs reduce in price. They won’t.

Margins will stay largely the same.

 

[essexpete]

When as a herd manager doing the same 100 hour week you wouldn’t be on anything like that

How many hours would the Russian guy be working with both jobs?

 

[Devil's advocate]

I think the one thing we learned during lockdown, was that a lot of the minimum wage manual jobs are indispensable and the country grinds to a halt without them, however, a lot of the well paid employees when they went on furlough or worked from home caused inconvenience but the country continued to function. I think there needs to be a recalibration of wage rates and remuneration to reflect this, but as society opens up again everyone is conveniently forgetting who was indispensable.

Heard them joking on radio 4, that the spotty teenager who stacks shelves in Tesco is not a key worker. Total snobbery the BBC looks down on manual workers, well most people would like to, even the unemployed.

 

[Banana Bar]

When will sprayer drivers get paid what their worth for doing the job. Given the.

Health implications.
Long unsociable hours.
The stress.
The pressure.
The responseability.
No home and social life.
servicing and maintaining 300 grand machine so it’s turn key ready.
Never being unable to plan anything outside work from February to November.
when you do get time off, you end up spending the time looking at the forecast for the next lot of spraying.
All this for just over the minimum wage.

And what are you worth? Plenty of adverts for sprayer drivers.

 

[Banana Bar]

Get the grain price up to £600 and there eill be jobs and better wages galore

I’ll bet you a packet of Werthers originals that the fertiliser price will follow it up.

 

[unlacedgecko]

Casual or seasonal workers are temporary and as such need to maximise their income in a short period. Piece work is a way of doing this, the harder you work the more you earn. I am sure on a day to day basis they may out earn the manager at times but on a month by month or yearly basis i doubt they’ll out earn the manager and if he’s unhappy he can start picking or look for another job.

Unfortunately since Gang Masters regulations came in most casual workers are provided through an agency. I've yet to see a UK agency offer piece rate. Greedy bastärds want an hourly rate so they can max their cut for doing fück all.

 

[Cowmansam]

How many hours would the Russian guy be working with both jobs?

He’s got just the one job 3 milking a day on one farm be around the 90 to a hundred hours I reckon but If they give him a day off he goes to the farm down the road and gets work there

 

[glasshouse]

I’ll bet you a packet of Werthers originals that the fertiliser price will follow it up.

Stop using it

 

[glasshouse]

Heard them joking on radio 4, that the spotty teenager who stacks shelves in Tesco is not a key worker. Total snobbery the BBC looks down on manual workers, well most people would like to, even the unemployed.

Fruit pickers are not seen as skilled or key workers by the uk
Combine drivers in oz neither

 

[Flatlander]

£600 for wheat is not outragious at all, its going to happen.
Just look at thr canadian drought situation and brasil frosts

Very true. Everyone I speak too about grain prices is not talking how much better off they will be but how the higher prices are off setting a poor crop and the likelihood of the chem and fertilizer retailers wanting their even bigger share of the action. We’ll be no better off with height grain prices and higher inputs but a lot further in the hole in the event of a poor crop. governments across the world won’t let grain prices skyrocket,we are here to supply cheap food for voters. Rich or poor will be fed by us,but the rich will feed off us too.

 

[Lowland1]

Unfortunately since Gang Masters regulations came in most casual workers are provided through an agency. I've yet to see a UK agency offer piece rate. Greedy bastärds want an hourly rate so they can max their cut for doing fück all.

I know some tasks in the veg industry are done on task on some farms but determining a fair task is a problem and also when you are picking a crop multiple times it's hard when you're trying to get the last bit which is where your profit is but not where the picker makes their money. I can see it being hard to convince an Albanian Gypsy to finish every last cabbage in field for a lower hourly rate than in a new field. Ì have a list of piece rates for tractor work in Lincolnshire in the fifties I wonder if anyone still pays tractor drivers by the acre.

 

[BAC]

"Asset rich farmers", this pisses me off, so for generations the same farm has toiled away scrimping and saving and now we are penalised for out efforts FU , i might as well bang out 15 kids and live of the sub - of having kids. LET ME BE CLEAR no one goes to the supermarket and looks at the price of milk or bread they just pick it up if it was 50p more as long as the one they walk out of the shop with is the lowest they are happy.

put yourself in he position of a farm worker….. working for £10 an hour whilst trying to save £20,000 for a deposit for a house whilst still paying for rent at £600 a month whilst providing for their family and trying to enjoy life.

a lot of farmers are selfish and think they are being hard done by in every case. Sure 90% of farmers have a house bought by the farm, vehicle bought through the farm and generally supported by the business. Farmers mostly have some form of asset to fall back on if needed.

You need staff to help make your business profitable than they need the £10 an hour.
The farming industry then wonder why workers go drive loadalls on construction sites for £15 an hour doing 8 hours a day.

 

[The Seeker]

All because the food we eat is undervalued, not because of the “greedy farmer”

 

[Cowmansam]

Nah there’s definitely greedy farmers about vast majority I would say try screw down lads wages

 

[BAC]

All because the food we eat is undervalued, not because of the “greedy farmer”

can’t blame paying sh!t wages on a sh!t market. Make your farm more efficient to make staff happier if that’s the case.

won’t be producing any crops without staff if the blame is always on the market

not saying yourself personally, meant as an industry.

 

[Cowmansam]

I’ve been to about ten different farms to talk about going to work for them and worked in 3 farms all but one wanted to pay way less then you would get stacking shelves

 

[BAC]

Staff are the best asset you could have on a farm but most of the time are the most undervalued

 

[Scholsey]

Staff are the best asset you could have on a farm but most of the time are the most undervalued

Any skilled tractor driver could make more money driving construction machinery purely because the construction industry just passes down the required increase in wages to the customer, when did you see ABP, Frontier, 2 sisters, Arla say we have increased the price to allow for a increase in living wage etc? It doesn’t happen, hence why a top tractor driver is on £20ish/hour yet you could be a average crane driver probably on twice that.

Think majority of farm staff would be very disappointed on a profit share agreement and that’s not because their boss is running a 5hit show or buying new range rovers to hide it from the tax man.