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18th September 2022, 09:58 AM
#1
The 4 day week ?
I see by the news on the internet there is movement afoot to bring the working week down to a four day week or 32 hours. Another generation and it will , be please just send my wages home please. I’ve got a bad head must have been something I drank.It used to be a 56 hour week at sea and people even then were looking for overtime . Unless that is the catch and the overworked workers are looking for a quicker path to overtime rates, but that is not the excuse being put forward. What happens in years to come when no one goes to work. Maybe it is time for people to start asking questions from their friendly helpful political representative . They if anyone should have experience of shorter working hours . JS
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18th September 2022, 01:54 PM
#2
Re: The 4 day week ?
Well john the unions wont be able to strike eventually .....as they wont be at work any way lol.....so it may finally come the unions might have to go to work themselves to show unison with themselves ....and folk will just go to a money bank once a week and collect what they think they will need ...but like now ......WHO WILL PUT THE MONEY INTO THE MONEY BANK......suppose some union wizard will have the answer .....R683532
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18th September 2022, 02:18 PM
#3
Re: The 4 day week ?
The system is already here , if you do not want to work you just sit on your rrrrs at home and live on benefits. there are untold numbers of able bodied men who are doing just that. And when you get so fat you cant get up a social worker
will do your shopping for you so you can just get fatter and fatter on junk food. This is how our benefits system is being
abused and no one seems to know how to stop it.
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18th September 2022, 02:24 PM
#4
Re: The 4 day week ?
Jeez John, you had it soft. Catering was turn to at 6am- 9:00, 11am- 14:00, 16:00-19:00. 7 days a week, with a day off with pay for every Sunday at sea. The Castle boats big ships scheduled a Sunday stop in Las Palmas, so no Sunday out bound at sea on the Cape run, and another one in Durban and Cape town if I remember. And no meal breaks in the galley, you ate on the run. The only break UCSL gave is they abolished the Press Gangs.
Cheers, Rodney
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18th September 2022, 02:57 PM
#5
Re: The 4 day week ?
Originally Posted by
j.sabourn
I see by the news on the internet there is movement afoot to bring the working week down to a four day week or 32 hours. Another generation and it will , be please just send my wages home please. I’ve got a bad head must have been something I drank.It used to be a 56 hour week at sea and people even then were looking for overtime . Unless that is the catch and the overworked workers are looking for a quicker path to overtime rates, but that is not the excuse being put forward. What happens in years to come when no one goes to work. Maybe it is time for people to start asking questions from their friendly helpful political representative . They if anyone should have experience of shorter working hours . JS
Most modern seamen can only dream of a 56 hour working week at sea - the industry standard these days is something in the order of circa 84 hours and no overtime payable. Even so, I can never recall working only 56 hours a week, certainly not as a watchkeeper. The only people who could possibly do so would be a slack handful of dayworkers.
As the years and decades roll on are we not supposed to progress as a society, both culturally and otherwise? As technology evolves should it be sustainable to work shorter hours then I say go for it. More "family time" and personal time can never be a bad thing.
The Swedes - undoubtedly one of the more progressive nations in Europe - have been actively looking at the 4 day week concept for some time and have been undertaking some trials with it. As I believe have their neighbours in Finland.
Let us not forget that the young people of today shall have to work far longer than the baby boomer generation before they are able to collect their pension. That pension shall inevitably be worth a pittance compared to those who went before. Company pension schemes have nearly all disappeared, final salary schemes are now all but extinct never to return. The concept of early retirement has rapidly become a thing of the past and will shortly be thought of as nothing more than a myth.
By way of illustration with the MN. The MN officers pension fund was effectively a final salary scheme but closed to new entrants back in 1991, this was based on approx. 20% employer contributions and was a defined benefit scheme. Nominal retirement age was 61 but you could go from 55 onwards and many did.
It's replacement was the MN Officers Pension Plan which is a shockingly poor relation and is in contrast a defined contributions scheme where participating employers only contribute 5%. There are very few participating employers left quite simply because there are so few British shipping companies left. Retirement with MNOPP is in line state pension age, e.g. 67 (and due to rise).
It's selfish to say so, but I am so glad I am not an 18 year old school leaver today trying to make their way in the world. Crippled with debt from the start from university, struggling to scrape together enough cash to raise a deposit for a home and even if that were possible then a punitive long term mortgage awaits. Only a couple of months ago our ever benevolent government made noises about considering allowing lifetime and multi generational (100 year) mortgages to be introduced.
One thing many foreigners comment on about the UK is that only in this country is flogging yourself to death for the benefit of the profits of an employer seen as some kind of virtue.
As the saying goes: work to live, not live to work.
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18th September 2022, 03:05 PM
#6
Re: The 4 day week ?
My son works a 4 day week. He starts at 6am and finishes 6pm. He takes Wednesday off as the kids are off school that day. Thankfully he earns enough to have a comfortable life style.
People in full time employment are at there highest levels in years. There are many people in full time employment who are still claiming benefits simply because the wages they earn are not high enough to keep a family& pay the bills.
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18th September 2022, 03:35 PM
#7
Re: The 4 day week ?
Originally Posted by
james curry
my son works a 4 day week. He starts at 6am and finishes 6pm. He takes wednesday off as the kids are off school that day. Thankfully he earns enough to have a comfortable life style.
People in full time employment are at there highest levels in years. There are many people in full time employment who are still claiming benefits simply because the wages they earn are not high enough to keep a family& pay the bills.
only one question .......when were wages ever enough to pay the bills......and how the feck can working less hours make it pay the bills .....in utopia....but then as i stated in an earlier post ... The law of supply and demand rules ....and until someone invests in a idea ......nobody has a job...and when nobody has a job who pays the benefits....r683532
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18th September 2022, 04:29 PM
#8
Re: The 4 day week ?
Originally Posted by
colin mcclelland
the system is already here , if you do not want to work you just sit on your rrrrs at home and live on benefits. There are untold numbers of able bodied men who are doing just that. And when you get so fat you cant get up a social worker
will do your shopping for you so you can just get fatter and fatter on junk food. This is how our benefits system is being
abused and no one seems to know how to stop it.
what i cannot understand is the dozens of people .....constantly saying .....i cannot eat and keep warm .....this is daily in the newspapers and on tele .....we have just had the longest hot summer in my lifetime .....my heating bill for the last quarter was 71 quid....we are turning from a hard working nation into a nation of bleedin whingers and .....i have heard all my life of the greedy shipowners the greedy bosses ....but is simple maths .....the greedy shipowners have gone ...the greedy bosses are not employing ....why because in so many cases it is just not profitable and gives no return ....as for folk with no qualifications or skills .....here in yorks a 40 hour week in a supermarket can earn 450 quid ....times 2 equals 900 quid a week ....in my time as an employer i was amazed at the number of folk who could not read and in some cases write ....after surely being offered one of the best educational systems in the world this is almost beyond belief ......yes there are thousands virtually unemployable .....and the workers are taxed to the hilt to pay the most well known words in the english language ........my benefits.... Its bloody comical r 683532
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18th September 2022, 04:55 PM
#9
Re: The 4 day week ?
Ref 5 if a average seaman is working 84 hours per week what is the average wage .....for crew and seperetly for officers....and can you suggest... How can he compete with asian or indian crew wages.... From the shipping owners in this country if we indeed have any left r683532
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18th September 2022, 05:41 PM
#10
Re: The 4 day week ?
When i went to sea, i left a job paying £1.25 pounds a week, 1957, paid Mum 15 bob for my keep, is that a tradition still alive ??, joined the MN on £12 17. 6 p per month ALL FOUND !!!, plus overtime, fed like a king. Yes it could be long hours, no TV , radio before it faded beyond land end, then it was a game of cards if you were lucky, i thought i was in heaven, and i was still only the peggy for Christs sake, bereft !! what was that in 1957 ???
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