Don't know what this would be called. Maybe a slight panic attack because of the uselessness of our government? Or maybe this just counts as me over-reacting because I'm lucky in the fact that my parents have told me that they will help me if I get into financial difficulties through no fault of my own.
But the new four year plan of the government was announced today, and among it is a drop in minimum wage by a euro. Yes, I'm sure that this is only 12%, but its the amount of hours I can be offered at work is what is worrying me. I only get 30 hours. That is all they can afford to pay me so I'm stuck between being Full Time and Part-Time. The government announced that the reason for the cut was so that businesses could use the small amount they saved in order to employ more people. And therefore, the amount of people on the Dole would be reduced.
And I've got one word to that.
BULLSHIT!
The businesses are not going to put it back into anything to do with their employees. They are not going to use it to get someone else in so that their over-worked staff have at least one more person to handle the load. No, where its going to go is adhering to what the customers want. For more merchandise. To being able to make new -deals- in order to entice customers in.
It's not going to help the ones working there.
Call me baby all you want, but where I work there are only, on a good day, four of us in and that will include a Manager. We have a large store. There are two floors that we are supposed to monitor at all times. As it is, the Manager can't be on the floor very often but knows that all of the staff are well-trained so that we can get on with our job without having to interrupt them. The Manager is in the Office, trying to deal with the -wonderful- new ideas of the bosses who were in today to give out to us, but that's another rant.
There is also needing to be one person to do Goods-In. To get all the stock on the trolley and send it up. They do not interact with the public at all and spend their time going through boxes and getting all of that done, without doing any stickering.
So, that leaves two of us on the floor, who have to sticker all of the merchandise that comes up and put it out, make sure the shop looks pretty and making any adjustments, and at the same time looking after anyone who needs help. We're over-stretched. We can't do all that sucessfully and so generally the rest suffers as we try and drum up sales because our shop has already failed once and we don't want that to happen again.
And then we get yelled at by the bosses for not getting out the books that need to be on our shelves. For not getting the shop ready for the new books or displays.
We just get on with it. We grit our teeth and do our best because we love our job. We love the shop we work at, the Managers and the people we work with (generally). We love what we do and we're prepared to make any sacrifices needed.
But the government is only making itself look more of an arse for actually believing that the cut in minimum wage is going to produce more jobs.
We had to fight in order to get Christmas Staff. The bosses were actually quite keen on just leaving the workforce as it was and we'd all just work extra hours. We don't have enough staff in order to make up all the hours we'd need in order to make sure that we would be able to pull it off. Our Managers did do the math, and it's just not possible.
And so, once this new minimum wage is passed, our wage is going to be cut and we're going to be in even more trouble than we already are. I wasn't one of the people during the Celtic Tiger who went out and bought a second house, second car with a morgage (spelling?), went out three times a week and just spent lavishly on myself and everyone I knew. I've been on minimum wage since I started working and I put everything by for a rainy day. And I got that rainy day when I became unemployed and during those months, my savings were just eaten away with even the Dole not being enough to keep me going.
No cuts for the high paying government jobs. Or the bankers. Or an increase of taxes on anyone of the high bracket of money earners.
Nope, just us fools who are on the lower end of the scale. There is going to be a new election in March/April because the Greens finally did what was honourable and are going to leave the government, therefore forcing a new government to be created. But...there isn't much going for Ireland at the moment. We've lost what used to make us Irish. Being pro-active and making the government work for us. Now we have small meaningless protests that don't result in anything.
There's more to this new plan of course, but it's that point that affects (effects?) me the most. I'll probably list the others in another entry, but at the moment I need to go to bed. I'm working Late Late Shift Tomorrow but need my sleep. Seven hours isn't cutting it any more.
Kya
|
Loading...