25th July 2011, 02:08 PM
One man's undercutting is another's competitive tender. The principle applies to individuals and empluees and well as firms: the market, or going rate, is what it is, and if people are willing to work 25 hour days, 8 days a week, travelling 500 miles a day to do so for ?100 a week, well the system must work, the client and therefore ultimately the consumer and society all benefit. This is the way the system works and is seen as a Good Thing - forces efficiency and Value For Money through Healthy Competition.
Well of course this is largely tosh, over-simplistic and only partially true (and breaks down when firms are able and willing to buy jobs ie tender at below cost), but it is the dogma under which we have lived since 1979 and to be honest is very unlikely to change in the forseeable future.
A step forward would be enforcement of standards, both statutory and contractual: this means a well resourced and diligent curatorial body, and consultants with the teeth and attitude of (say) an architect when faced a lousy piece of (say) brickwork: not in accordance with th contract, s/he will cry, and down it comes, no messing. Also it would be nice if people just did not accept silly conditions and/or wages: pee off and work for Tesco, probabky for more money, if need be.
None of which likely to happen, so it goes on.
Well of course this is largely tosh, over-simplistic and only partially true (and breaks down when firms are able and willing to buy jobs ie tender at below cost), but it is the dogma under which we have lived since 1979 and to be honest is very unlikely to change in the forseeable future.
A step forward would be enforcement of standards, both statutory and contractual: this means a well resourced and diligent curatorial body, and consultants with the teeth and attitude of (say) an architect when faced a lousy piece of (say) brickwork: not in accordance with th contract, s/he will cry, and down it comes, no messing. Also it would be nice if people just did not accept silly conditions and/or wages: pee off and work for Tesco, probabky for more money, if need be.
None of which likely to happen, so it goes on.