The rising cost of living

[bickster]

Fuel watch: Just paid £1:42.9p for diesel at the local self service. Thats more than 3 gallons for £20 for the first time AND fir the first time unleaded was the same price

[TDR V2]

There's a Total Engergies petrol station in Wolves that ever since these joke prices has been charging his cost plus £1.

When I filled up last week it was 134.3 for petrol. Its the cheapest decent petrol I can find anywhere

[TDR V2]

5 minutes ago, Talldarkandransome said:

There's a Total Engergies petrol station in Wolves that ever since these joke prices has been charging his cost plus £1.

When I filled up last week it was 134.3 for petrol. Its the cheapest decent petrol I can find anywhere

When I say decent I mean cheapest anywhere. None of the supermarkets are close, apart from one nearby. 

[Genie]

56 minutes ago, bickster said:

Fuel watch: Just paid £1:42.9p for diesel at the local self service. Thats more than 3 gallons for £20 for the first time AND fir the first time unleaded was the same price

Bloody hell, I paid 161.7p for diesel at Morrisons today. 

[bickster]

29 minutes ago, Genie said:

Bloody hell, I paid 161.7p for diesel at Morrisons today. 

Without a shadow of doubt, even the supermarkets are charging rip off prices. I've got two of these self service / no staff places down the road from me and they are different companies and are both charging the same prices. There's a BP no more than 300 meters up the road and it's still £1:56.9 for diesel, I doubt they are selling much

[fightoffyour]

12 hours ago, StefanAVFC said:

125 zloty for a steak in a restaurant these days, I remember the day Poland was cheap

Still is according to the SLC

[TDR V2]

2 minutes ago, bickster said:

Without a shadow of doubt, even the supermarkets are charging rip off prices. I've got two of these self service / no staff places down the road from me and they are different companies and are both charging the same prices. There's a BP no more than 300 meters up the road and it's still £1:56.9 for diesel, I doubt they are selling much

My guy has overheads but he chooses not to rip people off. Supermarkets and 95% of petrol stations are just taking the piss

[AvfcRigo82]

9 minutes ago, bickster said:

Without a shadow of doubt, even the supermarkets are charging rip off prices.

 

4 minutes ago, Talldarkandransome said:

Supermarkets and 95% of petrol stations are just taking the piss

Totally.

As you've both mentioned, prices have fallen and so therefore they should be getting passed down to the customer... but no. Both supermarkets and the other big boys continue to rip the piss out of people. W*****s

[Genie]

A page or 2 back I posted a story from the RAC, Petrol and Diesel wholesale prices are the same, yet petrol stations are charging around 17p a litre more for diesel. It’s a scandal on its own.

[sharkyvilla]

12 hours ago, Talldarkandransome said:

There's a Total Engergies petrol station in Wolves that ever since these joke prices has been charging his cost plus £1.

When I filled up last week it was 134.3 for petrol. Its the cheapest decent petrol I can find anywhere

I got it just less than 134 at Sainsburys in Crawley, they have what I think is an Applegreen station just down the road that has been selling it cheap so they're always competing to have the lower price.  I can drive that way home from work that way and do my shopping as well which saves a couple of journeys too.

[sharkyvilla]

23 hours ago, Genie said:

We got ~10% payrise last year as it was pre-agreed the year before and the business made lots of unhappy noises about how much it would cost etc.

Inflation still above 10%, they can’t just increase the entire workforce salaries by another 10%. Plus all the other stuff like bonuses and pensions.

The UK is in a death spiral. 

It's weird because in all this Easyjet's revenue per seat has gone up 40-odd% and the summer schedule is already 80% sold, so people still seem to be prioritising holidays.  I voted against a 10% payrise yesterday on the advice of Unite, this has been the slowest pay negotiation in history and the later they leave it the more damaging a strike would be in the height of summer.  They can't expect so many more flights and revenue and not pay the ground staff their fair share.

[Genie]

18 minutes ago, sharkyvilla said:

It's weird because in all this Easyjet's revenue per seat has gone up 40-odd% and the summer schedule is already 80% sold, so people still seem to be prioritising holidays.  I voted against a 10% payrise yesterday on the advice of Unite, this has been the slowest pay negotiation in history and the later they leave it the more damaging a strike would be in the height of summer.  They can't expect so many more flights and revenue and not pay the ground staff their fair share.

Holidays are an interesting one, it’s one thing as a family we have always prioritised. We have always booked fairly late and taken 2-3 foreign holidays per year. Not this year its looking impossible.

Prices are sky high (no pun intended) which suggests seats and rooms are mainly booked up. I find that really surprising.

In the past we might have picked up a late ish self-catering break in somewhere like the balearics for £800-£1200 for the 4 of us. This year the absolute cheapest seems to be £1800-£2000 and thats shit flights and low rated hotels. No thanks.

[blandy]

1 hour ago, sharkyvilla said:

I voted against a 10% payrise yesterday on the advice of Unite, this has been the slowest pay negotiation in history and the later they leave it the more damaging a strike would be in the height of summer. 

This is quite interesting. At my place, going back a decade or so, the Union and Company used to start negotiations for pay rises around October time (to be implemented the next January) and usually it would be concluded by the end of the year, ready for the new pay rates from Jan of the new year. More recently, the Company would always come up with a reason why they couldn't start negotiating and it would drag well into the next year before the process even started. As the years have gone by, they more and more delayed things and we'd generally get something by mid year or later. I thin 2 or maybe 3 years ago it dragged right through the year, into the next year and then essentially 2 negotiations merged into one. The last one, which should have started in late 2021, dragged into June 2022, but the Company suddenly changed tack and offered a OK deal for 2022 and essentially the same again for 2023, for all business units (previously it was always done site by site). Unite accepted and then the members accepted.

The point being, that the Company was deliberately delaying pay increases and talks, to earn interest on the money they weren't paying the workforce, but as soon as the threat of even higher inflation arose, they realised that a decent-ish offer out of the blue might/would be likely accepted, and that delay would have led to a bigger demand from the Union, once inflation was much higher. So even as a skilled, well educated workforce, where there is a shortage of staff to fill roles, we still got a significantly below inflation pay rise (plus a couple of grand in two one-off payments). I'm not complaining, I'm fine financially, but it's just an example of how Companies manipulate things to their advantage in every way they can, but at some point they realise (if they're well run) that it's in their interests to offer a decent amount to their workers. Sadly a lot of businesses are not well run, or have some pretty poor relations with their workers.

[sharkyvilla]

37 minutes ago, blandy said:

This is quite interesting. At my place, going back a decade or so, the Union and Company used to start negotiations for pay rises around October time (to be implemented the next January) and usually it would be concluded by the end of the year, ready for the new pay rates from Jan of the new year. More recently, the Company would always come up with a reason why they couldn't start negotiating and it would drag well into the next year before the process even started. As the years have gone by, they more and more delayed things and we'd generally get something by mid year or later. I thin 2 or maybe 3 years ago it dragged right through the year, into the next year and then essentially 2 negotiations merged into one. The last one, which should have started in late 2021, dragged into June 2022, but the Company suddenly changed tack and offered a OK deal for 2022 and essentially the same again for 2023, for all business units (previously it was always done site by site). Unite accepted and then the members accepted.

The point being, that the Company was deliberately delaying pay increases and talks, to earn interest on the money they weren't paying the workforce, but as soon as the threat of even higher inflation arose, they realised that a decent-ish offer out of the blue might/would be likely accepted, and that delay would have led to a bigger demand from the Union, once inflation was much higher. So even as a skilled, well educated workforce, where there is a shortage of staff to fill roles, we still got a significantly below inflation pay rise (plus a couple of grand in two one-off payments). I'm not complaining, I'm fine financially, but it's just an example of how Companies manipulate things to their advantage in every way they can, but at some point they realise (if they're well run) that it's in their interests to offer a decent amount to their workers. Sadly a lot of businesses are not well run, or have some pretty poor relations with their workers.

They intended as you said to get it done by January but they came back in March offering 3% which was an absolute waste of time.  We asked for 24% which probably didn't help.  I think they are hoping people leave so they don't have to do backpay to January and get new people in.

[Genie]

1 minute ago, sharkyvilla said:

They intended as you said to get it done by January but they came back in March offering 3% which was an absolute waste of time.  We asked for 24% which probably didn't help.  I think they are hoping people leave so they don't have to do backpay to January and get new people in.

Years ago I was told that in Germany pay negotiations are managed differently. 
The union submits its request and the company its offer to a 3rd party who reviews and selects one of them. There is no negotiation.

The result being both parties align quite closely to avoid being priced out.

No idea how much truth there is in that but it seems sensible in theory.

With inflation at circa 10% the company wouldn’t want to risk a 3% offer being laughed at, and the union the same asking for 24%… You’d probably see both parties submitting proposals around 8-12%.

[blandy]

1 hour ago, Genie said:

With inflation at circa 10% the company wouldn’t want to risk a 3% offer being laughed at, and the union the same asking for 24%… You’d probably see both parties submitting proposals around 8-12%.

It’s just occurred to me that my Union has never, ever, asked for a figure, like “we want 8%” or whatever amount. It’s always been “a pay increase recognising the contribution of the workforce to the success of the business” and then “a reduction in the number of hours in the working week” plus any specific demands around particular issues of concern. So that never led, from the start to a 3% v 10% type situation. We never got anywhere on the working hours, ever, but the other stuff we did pretty well, getting better flexi-time and so on ( though it sometimes took mass meeting rejection of “final offers” and the threat of action as a consequence.

I guess one of the current problems with the cost of living, is all the public service workers are up against government, rather than the private sector, which is negotiating with businesses. The government is obviously also taking a party political angle, not just a pay talk angle, which makes it harder.

[Genie]

2 minutes ago, blandy said:

It’s just occurred to me that my Union has never, ever, asked for a figure, like “we want 8%” or whatever amount.

I would assume privately during negotiations a figure would have been tabled.

[blandy]

1 minute ago, Genie said:

I would assume privately during negotiations a figure would have been tabled.

Not from the Union, honestly. The initial “what do you want” thing I mentioned would be discussed, along with what the company wanted  (e.g. more flexible movement of people between sites, or whatever). Then , later the company would make an initial proposal, which would generally be objected to, in part at least, by the union negotiating team “2% isn’t enough, given we’ve just made x profit and inflation is y%”.  They may then have said “make it closer to 5% (or whatever)”, but they have never reported that to the members, so I doubt it, but to be fair, both sides detailed discussions are always in confidence and neither side has ever leaked the details, we only ever got the report on the final offer and how they got there, plus a recco on whether to vote for against at the mass meeting.

[Demitri_C]

8 hours ago, sharkyvilla said:

It's weird because in all this Easyjet's revenue per seat has gone up 40-odd% and the summer schedule is already 80% sold, so people still seem to be prioritising holidays.  I voted against a 10% payrise yesterday on the advice of Unite, this has been the slowest pay negotiation in history and the later they leave it the more damaging a strike would be in the height of summer.  They can't expect so many more flights and revenue and not pay the ground staff their fair share.

I accepted our offer of 5% for nhs workers would have liked more but i dont think they wokld have given us more. Unison advised us to accept it too

[foreveryoung]

Well having run an EV for a week around 200 mile a day for 5 days, I have worked it out being more expensive than the diesel car I had. Should do 280 mile on a full charge, I'd take it to 180 mile and poo my pants to about 200 then charge it fully.

So the verdict, unless you do 3000 miles a year or wanna save the planet, stick to your oil guzzler. You'll probably add to destroying the planet anyway when the battery has expired, cause its a world of pain to recycle them.