12th November 2012, 01:44 PM
Ok so we're talking about what minimum wages should be, meanwhile certain firms are exploiting the trainee grade to make savings by not employing more experienced site staff and even laying off more experienced staff in favour of keeping on new graduates with no experience basically because this is cheaper (who are training these trainees no one knows?). With actions like this being taken by some units and managers the whole process of establishing wages and grades is undermined - well for the lower end of site work. Certainly something should be in place that says that only a small proportion of excavating site staff can be paid as trainees as this situation is being exploited.