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Profits 2005 - £193 million.
http://www.hoovers.com/waitrose/--ID__115637--/free-co-factsheet.xhtml
Number of employees - 32,500.
Now, excluding the fact that your current wage is included in costs and therefore not part of profits - someone has conned you out of around £6000.
Add up all the shit that would come your way if it wasn't put on the cost sideby the accountants and it's probably more like £10-12 grand a year.
(It's not in a companies interest to make a profit a lot of the time due to tax law, and the various kickbacks and freebies that they invest in to get some use out of monay that would otherwise go to the government)
And you got 12% - congratulations. it's more than other con-panies i agree. Nothing to shout about though really.
I don't know about your figures, I'm sure there's some reason..Anyway maybe it's just me but for a bog standard job in a shop £450 is something to shout about. As it is for full time people for who 12% of their wage as a bonus every year is a lot and really helps out. The actual job sucks but if you had a job where on your March pay slip you had a few hundred pounds extra you'd be pretty weird not to shout about it.
My point is that most of the working population have been systematically conned. Even leaving aside such questions as paying bosses more than workers, you have been robbed over and over again.
The part that really gets me though is that you are grateful for a tiny percentage of what you are really worth when it's handed to you, not indignant that you are being stolen from daily.
It's this kind of blindness to your own situation that keeps the whole system going and it frankly amazes me.
Waitrose/John Lewis is a partnership. What’s left from the profits after expenditure, investment in new stores, money put aside for pension fund, etc goes to all partners as bonus. If it’s 12% everybody gets 12%; shopfloor staff, managers, etc. Nobody is being conned. I'm not an expert on Waitrose but I know that a lot of partners are incredibly watchful of what goes on, there's elected bodies and such and any partner can question management - if partners were being conned people would be making a pretty big fuss.
You're talking utter bollocks pure and simple. Send a letter to them explaining how you come to your absurd conclusions and they'll send you one back proving that you're talking complete nonsense. I don't know why I even waste my time reading or replying to your posts.
http://www.solbaram.org/articles/johnle.html
Apparently your net worth p.a. in 1995 at a profit of 121 million would have been - GBP 30,700. Average pay was 12,000 GBP. That's 18,700 that should have gone to the workers that didn't.
Add the bonus - After bonus 428.3x1,000/31 = GBP 13,800 (these are figures from the article, not mine)
Looks like a 10%ish pay out that year, like your 12% this year. You are 88% short.
This is normal running for the organisation and, like all capitalist corporations, must cheat it's employees in order to exist in the first place.
The John Lewis partnership is, I agree, a relatively good employer, compared to the out and out robbery of normal firms. To say it's ideal would be to sell yourself well short, so don't.
I imagine the partners who count - the chairman who is on 15x the average wage for the company as an example, aren't pre-disposed towards making a big fuss.
Seems reasonable for me. You don't neccessarily want to pay all your profits out as it will mean you have no reserve for if things go wrong or to help grow the business.
And most people would need pensions if they got paid properly in the first place because........?
It is. Very reasonable. Very economical. Accountants figures of course, and probably not even vaguely realistic, but who knows? That wasn't my point. My point was that it's a "thank'ee master!" when the average worker is shown something that's even within spitting distance of what they should actually be paid, and not disgusted that they are exploited.
Also, as it's so obviously reasonable to plow that cash back in, you would expect a "partner" to be able to choose to invest his or her own share of the pot (or not) based on their own self interest. They earned the money, after all.
It just amazes me totally. If we were to cook gateau together, and then I was to to walk off with most of the cake theres not one person on earth who wouldn't wonder what the fuck was going on. And yet it happens daily.
I haven't commented on this because I've been very busy at work, but I was asked so I'll say what I think.
Tesco collating details of people using Clubcard is not wrong- they pay you for having a Clubcard, and you don't have to use a Clubcard. You don't get something for nothing ever, and Tesco pay you some money so that they can make more by tailoring their shops and promotions to what people actually want.
I don't believe that details of transactions using credit/debit cards can be revealed by any party, as it is confidential information. But credit agencies can and do reveal information about your general credit-worthiness and your propensity to spend.
I'm not shocked because they, and other companies, have been doing it for years. They don't know anything personal about you in any attributable way, they just know how to market to you as a consumer to make you spend in a way agreeable to them. Of course they know where and how you spend, because people are quite happy to fill in the tick boxes on forms and the address sheet when returning goods.
The best way if you don't want people to know about you, is to not use credit, not use plastic, pay cash everywhere, and not register any product you own. Criminals use cash and unregistered electrical goods to avoid a papertrail, so if anyone else is bothered by having a trail they should do the same.
In your (marxist theory based) opinion
You really think making any kind of profits means they are unethical?
Why would this company and the jobs it creates even exist if there were no profits to be made?
Where do you think that profit comes from?
I work for a non-profit organisation.
From revenues being larger than costs I guess
Well done, you are a saint.........
Doesn't answer the question though, how many companies would continue to exist if they could not make profit?
I thought you had studied economics.
Why do they need to make a profit? If all wages are paid, enough money is put back into the company for r&d then why does there need to be a profit?
you'd be amazed how much we waste!
I was being sarcy, never mind............
Why would I invest in a company that wasn't going to make a profit?
So you don't know where profit comes from then.
Why invest fullstop?
From the exploitation of the proletariat by the evil capitalist pig-dog I suspect
Well indeed, and would this be a good idea i wonder?
Where did the capital for the company you work for come from?
You haven't really given this any serious thought have you?
Well it would make you money for doing precisely fuck all. Money that is technically stolen from someone else's labour.
From someone's labour. That's the whole point.
Ergo, the worker is being exploited, as he is not getting the full value of his work.
Why does there need to be profit? Once everyone is paid (including the CEO) and R&D costs are paid for, what need is there for profit? Who benefits from profit? If you are happy for someone to make shedloads of cash from doing no work then fine, but don't deny it is anything other than exploitation.
Profit per se is not wrong. I earn less than I make for my boss. But the money I make goes to my boss as his earnings, and he works for that money. Fair enough. In a corporate setting this is simply not the case. Shareholders don't do any work for that money, they simply cream off money that should be going to the people in the company.
So you advocate that investment should not be rewarded?
If this is the case then why would anyone invest and where would the jobs come form in the first place?
There are lots of theories of profits of which Marxism is only one.
Another plausible theory is that profits are a reward for entrepreneurship, what do you think of that?
Using that line of logic you may as well assign blame to consumers for propping up demand making the market for the product clear at a higher price than the markets for the labour and other input costs.
Ultimately either from their own or other people's labour.
Well seeing as its money appropriated from other people's labour, no. But I disagree with the entire concept of investment.
Why do we need investment? Jobs would come from people working either for themselves or for co-operatives.
Granted, but its the one that makes most sense and most accurately describes capitalism.
I think its nonsense as it is impossible to separate people's contributions to making something. People should be renumerated for their labour - profit is money that is appropriated from other people's labour. Think about it.
You are an arrogant and condescending prick with a very closed mind so I don't think there is much point debating with you to be honest.......
eh?
Investment is only one way of raising capital, and it is only a way that is necessary in a capitalist society. Co-operatives can and will work just as effectively- people cannot do everything themselves, so there will always be jobs, as products will always need to be made for those who can't make them themselves.
But instead of some bloke creaming off their labour and then using it as an "investment" to justify more creaming off of labour, everyone will benefit as the profit will be concentrated in all people's hands, not just the hyper-rich few.
Regardless of whether you agree with socialist/marxist philosophy, there is no escaping the fact that profit is simply exploiting workers by not giving them the full value of their labour.