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PaperclipPerfector  8d ago (text post)   31560 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 7, 2025

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That would surprise me. I have literally never seen a bin-woman in my life.

Although the Birmingham case got the same result as one involving the clothing retailer Next. In that case, the shop-floor staff were getting paid less than the staff in the warehouse. The funny thing is, for Next, women were a majority in both areas. However, since the female majority was smaller in the warehouse, the tribunal ruled there was a case to answer (while also admitting that there was no actual discrimination happening, and that the jobs weren't the same).

It baffles me that these tribunals have the power to just dictate what jobs should pay.

Interestingly, Next, which is genuinely led by one of the best businessmen in the world (and I mean that without reservation, turning a mediocre British clothing retailer into an extraordinarily profitable and resilient operation) mostly solved the issue by rotating staff between the warehouse and storefront. If Simon Wolfson were dictator of England…well, it would be better managed, for sure.

It baffles me that these tribunals have the power to just dictate what jobs should pay.

I think this is the part of the story that's more important than wokeness or whatever; that ideological judges have such power in determining policy.

And one that could genuinely change in the UK. Starmer clearly doesn't like quangos dictating policy (e.g. the Sentencing Council deciding that everybody except white men should get reduced sentences) so I can't imagine he'd be sympathetic to an employment tribunal casually bankrupting the UK's second city.

Is it true that Starmer doesn't like this sort of thing? AFAIK he only started acting tough on the sentencing council once it became an awkward political issue, and on a more abstract level he seems to believe any outcome is sacrosanct as long as it's been determined by a legal body of some description.

He seems to be opposed to excessive government getting in the way of his growth agenda/state capacity, and has told his cabinet to stop hiding behind quangos.

Of course, Labour gonna Labour, so they're still setting up new quangos and implementing new rules about diversity and stuff, so we'll see how it shakes out.

That's fair.

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