Thursday, August 10, 2017

Living Wage madness and the BOM explosion

The LW proposal, applied to indirect staff, runs headlong into the bill-of-materials-explosion issue.  An illustration:

The policy:  every contractor to a LW-signed-up organisation must pay LW to staff.  Sounds simple, right?

- LW organisation hires a contractor (the head contractor, HC) to extend a car-park.
- HC sub-contracts (SC) five contractors to do digouts, gravel cartage, kerbing, sealing, landscaping.
- the SC for dig-outs blows an excavator hose and contracts a hydraulic hose repairer to come on site and replace it.
- four of the five SC's have diesel delivered to machines on site, by 4 different small-volume diesel retailers
- the sealing contractor sub-contracts a bitumen supplier to supply the hot-mix
- the kerbing contractor sub-contracts a concrete pre-mix supplier to deliver concrete into the kerbing machine

So does the LW apply to:  
- the HC (they employ only 2 people to supervise this job, yet have a staff of 100) - LW 2, 100 or something in between?
- each of the five SC's (same distribution - 2-4 people on site for this job, 20-50 off site, employed by those SC's, on other work)?
- the hydraulic hose repairer (a contractor to one of the SC's)?
- the four diesel suppliers (contractors to each of the SC's)?
- the bitumen supplier's staff?
- the concrete pre-mix supplier's staff?

The example could be expanded almost infinitely (the lunch contractor to the SC's?  the food suppliers to the lunch contractor? The processor. packer, transporter, grower of those foods? The truck maintenance firm for the concrete premix supplier?)

It's the most impractical suggestion one could possibly conceive.....
The LW proposal, applied to indirect staff, runs headlong into the bill-of-materials-explosion issue.  An illustration:

The policy:  every contractor to a LW-signed-up organisation must pay LW to staff.  Sounds simple, right?

- LW organisation hires a contractor (the head contractor, HC) to extend a car-park.
- HC sub-contracts (SC) five contractors to do digouts, gravel cartage, kerbing, sealing, landscaping.
- the SC for dig-outs blows an excavator hose and contracts a hydraulic hose repairer to come on site and replace it.
- four of the five SC's have diesel delivered to machines on site, by 4 different small-volume diesel retailers

So does the LW apply to:  
- the HC (they employ only 2 people to supervise this job, yet have a staff of 100) - LW 2, 100 or something in between?
- each of the five SC's (same distribution - 2-4 people on site for this job, 20-50 off site, employed by those SC's, on other work)?
- the hydraulic hose repairer (a contractor to one of the SC's)?
- the four diesel suppliers (contractors to each of the SC's)?

The example could be expanded almost infinitely (the lunch contractor to the SC's?  the food suppliers to the lunch contractor? The processor. packer, transporter, grower of those foods?)

It's the most impractical thing - CCHL is perfectly right to advise against it.The LW proposal, applied to indirect staff, runs headlong into the bill-of-materials-explosion issue.  An illustration:

The policy:  every contractor to a LW-signed-up organisation must pay LW to staff.  Sounds simple, right?

- LW organisation hires a contractor (the head contractor, HC) to extend a car-park.
- HC sub-contracts (SC) five contractors to do digouts, gravel cartage, kerbing, sealing, landscaping.
- the SC for dig-outs blows an excavator hose and contracts a hydraulic hose repairer to come on site and replace it.
- four of the five SC's have diesel delivered to machines on site, by 4 different small-volume diesel retailers

So does the LW apply to:  
- the HC (they employ only 2 people to supervise this job, yet have a staff of 100) - LW 2, 100 or something in between?
- each of the five SC's (same distribution - 2-4 people on site for this job, 20-50 off site, employed by those SC's, on other work)?
- the hydraulic hose repairer (a contractor to one of the SC's)?
- the four diesel suppliers (contractors to each of the SC's)?

The example could be expanded almost infinitely (the lunch contractor to the SC's?  the food suppliers to the lunch contractor? The processor. packer, transporter, grower of those foods?)

It's the most impractical thing - CCHL is perfectly right to advise against it.

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