On Wed, 6 Aug 2003 21:53:35 +0100, "Owain"
wrote:

The level of training, qualification and basic intelligence of most
labourers on British building sites is abysmal. And on spec developments
many labourers will be contracted to a labour hire contractor and not even
working directly for the main contractor.

Part of the problem has been Gordon Browns attack on the building
trade. You can't work on a building site these days without having
some certification or other, which basically forces the workman to pay
tax at the appropriate rate on all earnings.

I'm not advocating that people don't pay tax, that would be wrong.
However if you take away people's incentive to try harder and do
better for themselves then you end up with a dis-spirited workforce
who will never raise their game. Tax is fine if it is fairly applied,
but under the current regime every citizen is expected to maximise the
tax they pay to the chancellor - and that's not fair.

And I understand that on many if not all building sites the job rates
are pretty abyssmal. Probably always have been, I don't know. So if
the worker is being paid sh!t rates and being forced to hand over 30%
to that nice Mr Brown only the cowboy workers will take part.

Andrew

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