Author Topic: Wage negotiation  (Read 6553 times)

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Wage negotiation
« on: 25 March, 2020, 02:27:58 pm »
My son's been doing a paper round since January 2019. He was intending to give it up in April this year to prepare for GCSEs, but now he intends to carry on till he starts college in September. When he started there were 15 houses and he was paid £16 a week. A few other houses joined over the following year or so, judging by the cards and tips he got at Christmas it's quite possible this was because they'd heard from neighbours how reliable and punctual he was. Or maybe they had other reasons, but anyway, extra houses. Then over the last couple of weeks there's been a new influx of houses where people obviously want to get their daily news without risking a trip to the shop. He now has 21 houses, so almost a 50% increase on the original figure. Consequently the round takes longer.

What do people reckon, should he ask for a bit more pay? It seems deserved, but then again the shopkeeper is probably finding things hard right now (don't know, at least he's still open) and of course he'd rather have the round at the current pay than be laid off for a new kid at the old price.
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

telstarbox

  • Loving the lanes
Re: Wage negotiation
« Reply #1 on: 25 March, 2020, 02:39:42 pm »
What's his rough hourly rate?
2019 🏅 R1000 and B1000

caerau

  • SR x 3 - PBP fail but 1090 km - hey - not too bad
Re: Wage negotiation
« Reply #2 on: 25 March, 2020, 02:40:40 pm »
He'll be lucky, I never had a paper round of my own, but I did cover for my sister once and it was about 200 houses (and fekkin hard work).  This sounds like the easiest paper round ever to me.


Having said that
a) I'm amazed a paper round still exists.  :D   We tried to get one for the baby of the family in Birmingham about 20 years ago and they'd already died, even then.
b) I'd maybe leave a chancing arm for better times imo.







It's a reverse Elvis thing.

Re: Wage negotiation
« Reply #3 on: 25 March, 2020, 02:44:03 pm »
Yep, definitely should be outlawed.

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: Wage negotiation
« Reply #4 on: 25 March, 2020, 02:46:52 pm »
Paper rounds are booming! He now has two! His mate told him another shop was starting a paper round, hoping to do groceries too. This is a brand new round, a group of five (group of friends from school) are doing it collaboratively, started Sunday; but no one seems to know if they're actually going to be paid or it's just a service to the vulnerable. (both options are fine, really). But whether that one will outlast the epidemic is unknown.
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Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: Wage negotiation
« Reply #5 on: 25 March, 2020, 02:50:51 pm »
What's his rough hourly rate?
If we ignore the time getting to the shop and back, I think it works out about £4.50. Put like that, it sounds pretty good for a 15 year old, which inclines me to agree with Caerau's point b (by which time he'll probably have given it up anyway!)
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

telstarbox

  • Loving the lanes
Re: Wage negotiation
« Reply #6 on: 25 March, 2020, 04:04:34 pm »
For reference, £4.55/hour is the minimum wage for under-18s. So if the round expands again he'd be justified in asking for more.
2019 🏅 R1000 and B1000

Re: Wage negotiation
« Reply #7 on: 25 March, 2020, 04:11:45 pm »
There is a big difference between the free paper to every house once a wee type rounds and the daily paper to paying properties every day. My memory of the free papers was x pence per property for the local property new sheet while the daily round was circa £30 per week for a round of ~40 properties per day n.b. this was '95-2000. I don't think the pay rate changed in the five years I did the round.

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: Wage negotiation
« Reply #8 on: 25 March, 2020, 04:15:32 pm »
For reference, £4.55/hour is the minimum wage for under-18s. So if the round expands again he'd be justified in asking for more.
I hadn't even thought about a legal minimum wage! Turns out there isn't one until he turns 16:
Quote
Paying children and young people
Children under 16
School-aged children are not entitled to the National Minimum Wage.

Children under 16 do not pay National Insurance, so you only need to include them on your payroll if their total income is over their Personal Allowance.

Once someone reaches 16
Young workers aged 16 to 17 are entitled to at least £4.35 per hour.
https://www.gov.uk/child-employment/paying

There are rules on working hours but he's in no danger of breaching those.
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: Wage negotiation
« Reply #9 on: 27 March, 2020, 08:44:19 am »
Today, Friday, is pay day. 22 houses on the round now. He didn't ask for a rise; but when he went in to collect the papers, the guy announced he'd be getting £18 a week now. Result!  :thumbsup:
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

telstarbox

  • Loving the lanes
Re: Wage negotiation
« Reply #10 on: 27 March, 2020, 09:19:25 am »
Must be on the forum! Good news.
2019 🏅 R1000 and B1000

hellymedic

  • Just do it!
Re: Wage negotiation
« Reply #11 on: 27 March, 2020, 01:40:32 pm »
I babysat for a lecturer and was paid 25p/hour in 1976/7...

Re: Wage negotiation
« Reply #12 on: 27 March, 2020, 02:12:07 pm »
That's great news, Cudzo.

It makes me feel like I am from ancient history as I used to earn £1.35 a week delivering to 60 houses in 5 adjoining streets back in the early to mid '70s. I have many fond memories of those times.

1988 or so I think I was paid £2.50-ish to do 150 odd houses (a quarter of the village) for the weekly free paper (the Town Crier) with extra money if there were any inserts (sometimes up to 5 of them).

I got a similar amount a week for 30-40 of the local daily papers (Cambridge Evening News) to those that paid for it (also meant we tended to get one free as there was usually a couple extra in the bundle as the top/bottom ones got mangled by plastic ties used to bundle them).

I could do the nightly papers on a bike as they didn't weigh much and the houses were spread across the village, but the weekly free paper was done on foot as the bag was heavy at the start (and I lived right at the edge of the village).

Ooh, wavy lines nostalgia...
"Yes please" said Squirrel "biscuits are our favourite things."

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: Wage negotiation
« Reply #13 on: 27 March, 2020, 02:25:40 pm »
Isn't inflation wonderful!  :-\
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: Wage negotiation
« Reply #14 on: 30 March, 2020, 10:06:35 am »
Blimey! Another two houses today, bringing the total to 24 and another wage rise!  :o £20 a week! That's six joiners since and presumably due to covid outbreak, who take: 3 Times, 2 Sun, 1 Western Daily Press. Those are the only houses which take the Sun and WDP so it seems the paper round profile is altering.
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

Re: Wage negotiation
« Reply #15 on: 30 March, 2020, 10:12:21 am »
Quote from: Cudzoziemiec . Those are the only houses which take the Sun and WDP so it seems the paper round profile is altering.
[/quote

Or the bog roll situation has hit critical

Re: Wage negotiation
« Reply #16 on: 30 March, 2020, 01:55:19 pm »
Do it on a per-house cost. £16 for 15 houses, for X days a week = Yp/drop (15 for 7 days, 18 for 6 days, etc).
We are making a New World (Paul Nash, 1918)

Re: Wage negotiation
« Reply #17 on: 30 March, 2020, 03:32:55 pm »
Mileage matters too. We were on the very edge of the Manchester conurbation (south of Stockport). I got £1.75 a week for doing twice as many houses (in town) as my brother did for £3.50 or something, but he went out into the country a bit and did several miles, including George Best's house no less ;D

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: Wage negotiation
« Reply #18 on: 30 March, 2020, 03:36:58 pm »
And from George Best... A very long time ago, one of my cousins married a used car dealer. Yes, really. A used car dealer who had once sold a car to Kevin Keegan, no less! (these cousins lived in Liverpool; well, Birkenhead actually... ) Hard to imagine someone like that buying a used car now.
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: Wage negotiation
« Reply #19 on: 10 April, 2020, 09:20:06 am »
And now the council have apparently suspended all work permits for under-16s on grounds of infection risk. How this will affect his other, newer, volunteer round, which does exactly the same thing but has no permit, is as yet unknown.
 :(
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: Wage negotiation
« Reply #20 on: 22 July, 2020, 04:07:59 pm »
He recently turned 16, so the week before his birthday he went to the shop and said he'd be able to work legally without a permit. The shopkeeper was happy to take him on again and he's happy to get the money and have something to get him out of bed early in the morning. A couple of houses have dropped out during lockdown but a few others have joined, so it evens out.

And he's now 16, he's way too old for this board: over and out!
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FifeingEejit

  • Not Small
Re: Wage negotiation
« Reply #21 on: 22 July, 2020, 05:38:15 pm »
Late to the party.
This reminds me of the Broons strip where Horace needs the family to do his paper round.
The 8(?) of them ask what his paper round involves and they are delighted to discover it's just a single hoose.
Cue next panel with them in the paper shop recieving a huge bag of papers for this single hoose and the question "how does one hoose need so mony papers?"
Final panel being the shop keeper pointing up at a multi saying "that's thon hoose"