Grooms pay dispute

chicken n chips wrote: A person who comes in and cleans the house charges £12 an hours as does the guy who works in the garden. So why do these guys who look after an animal which can potentially earn tens if not hundreds of thousands only get paid around £1 an hour. Somebody, somewhere is laughing all the way to the bank.

You must work in Rands not Pounds (I'm sure a Macdonald's worker in the UK earns way more when converted to Rands but the cost of living is different in the UK)- My cleaning lady works 5 hours a week for me and earns R30 an hour - In SA I know domestic workers are paid between 60 - R150 per day sometimes more so you have an idea of where we are starting from.
- This is a very difficult subject and I think the argument about the cost of the horse at sales or potential future earnings falls flat as the same can then be said of car cards and security personnel in Banks who also are entrusted with the care of expensive items. The wage of grooms needs attention obviously and I believe that stakeholders should get together to thrash it out as a grooms strike would damage the industry no end.

Mr Hawaii if a person earns say £80 a day he can buy almost 2 weeks food with that. Can you buy 2 weeks food for what they pay a groom a day in SA?

One Rand more in your pocket means One Rand less in my pocket...

I read a fascinating article in a waiting room once that stated that the top 100 companies in SA had more than 700 billion Rands of Cash on their balance sheets whilst at that time the total indebtedness of individuals was 1,2 trillion Rands...we have seen the greatest shift of money from the pockets of many into the hands of a few...there is a tipping point and when and where that point is, I'm afraid to ponder...

As they say there are around 24 people at anytime that own just about everything in the world. You may think that you own your own house but you dont

On a small tangent from the topic on hand...

The fractional reserve banking system has enabled banks to extend credit way beyond the underlying assets and this mismatch is what is creating bubbles in asset prices...

Quantitative easing has flooded financial markets with increased money supply and at some point, inflation will make a return and so will increased interest rates to curb the inflation created by the previous excess which was a response to earlier excesses...central bankers are just deferring the inevitable into the future but the day of reckoning (for the excesses caused by central bankers) will be felt by everyone...defaults greater than those of Greece and before that Russia and the South American countries will become even more common...

Things are indeed bleak... ...my response has been to reduce / eliminate any / all debt, reduce my monthly expenses to what is absolutely necessary and exit the formal employment sector...

chicken n chips wrote: Mr Hawaii if a person earns say £80 a day he can buy almost 2 weeks food with that. Can you buy 2 weeks food for what they pay a groom a day in SA?

No you can't but that is not exclusive to grooms - The cost of living in SA is rocketing for everyone not just grooms - You need to come back to South Africa and see for yourself - You buy an item in the store at R10 and three months later it's R11 but your salary has remained constant - Why do you think we have so many strikes here? People cannot keep up with daily living increases. Let me give you an example - In SA today a person needing a knee operation was told by the state hospital that would happen in 7 years time - Would that ever happen in the UK? No - South Africa has serious financial and skill problems so you cannot ever compare us to a first world country and their economies.

I have often thought about returning to Cape Town but with all the negative media and things like you say long waiting lists etc puts one off. UK hospitals mess up on a regular basis and I have heard things like the wrong leg been amputated or the functional kidney been removed instead of the diseased one. I have very little idea of the cost of living there but i can imagine that it must be pretty high even if just going by the price of fuel at the pumps.

@mr hawaii...my opinion is that SA does not have a skills shortage as big as it is made out to be...I do agree that the education system condemns many people to a life where the best they can hope for is a entry-level, menial, low-paying job...just perfect for the capitalists that the SA government is in bed with whilst paradoxically having the Communist Party (leeches who have never contested an election but hold quite a few ministerial posts eg. Pravin Gordon, Rob Davies...) as an alliance partner... the big problem in SA is that there are sufficient skills but they are not used where they can be most efficient and effective to bring about the improvements necessary...

SA problem is UNDER-EMPLOYMENT and if that is solved, it will result in insignificant inroads in tackling the UNEMPLOYMENT problem...the efficiencies from employing the right people where and when they are needed will result in more funds being (available to be) spent for productive purposes / capacity (which generates further employment) rather than administrative purposes (generates no further employment)...

In ten years time there will be 20 million more people in SA. Australia has a third of our population but has a GDP twice that of ours - that means the average Australian is six times better off than the average South African. There are just too many people in SA for too few jobs and there will continue to be even more people, more people who will have little education, few skills and most of whom will expect the government to provide. Poverty will become deeper and deeper and in the end there wont be a need to discuss grooms' pay levels because there will be no racing. If we want to see the living standards of grooms rise significantly (and all other unskilled/semi skilled jobs) in the ten years then we need to drive education, and, some sort of national family planning campaign which there is none today.

10% of the population in a large amount of countries pay 90% of the taxes. :ohmy:

@Mac...I would assume that a safe starting point would be some education about family planning ??

Having more than 1 child either requires a vast increase in resources to adequately provide for all their needs or, if resources cannot be increased, it reduces the amount per child...this disadvantages a child from an early age with the differential growing exponentially with the passage of time...very very sad state of the world...

There are so many things that could be improved and many has been touched on so well in previous posts to this topic.

My two cents worth:

Unions breed mediocrity as extra work and higher quality work draws no extra reward as everyone gets the same increases. What motivation is there to excel and if you do you are often victimised and ordered to toe the line.

Education, which is the corner stone of successful society's has been reduced to a game of lets improve the pass rate. The pass rate means nothing if you are not adequately equipped to go out into life with usable skills or knowledge.

Also most South Africans have the aptitude to perform well but the attitude is just not there mostly with a work ethic that deserves very little reward and almost certainly no extra reward.

Annual increases should be earned, it should not be considered a right, and if the work is not of a quality that adds value should not be given. Our constitution, although good, is far too liberal with regards to employment as it protects workers beyond what is fair and equitable. Part of our unemployment problem is the limited rights that employers have to get rid of passengers and workers with a bad attitude. They will rather not create additional positions than to sit with constant labour issues. The current regulatory framework is robbing the economy and its people of thousands of new opportunities.

Bonuses paid to employees is another contentious issue as many failing companies still reward mediocrity in top positions and ignore the plight of workers in the lower rungs. Bonuses should only be rewarded when companies perform well for the benefit of all in the company and country.

The poor are in a no win situation as children born into poverty have little means of escaping their circumstances which leads to a further entrenchment of the income divide.

Life will probably never be fair but as parents we need to instil in our children a will to learn, teach the value of knowledge and a positive attitude, respect for one another and respect for the law and equip them with usable life skills that will make them an asset to society and capable future leaders. As such we have a massive responsibility to lead by example and to shape their thinking around being unified South Africans.