The minimum wage didn't come about by people boycotting low paying employers. Most positive labour law has arisen from the "great and the good" campaigning for change while society carries on with the same poor labour law until the campaigns have succeeded.

The majority also aren't in the position to pick and choose how they shop. I am sure there are plenty who would prefer to shop a John Lewis as its a partnership (despite their treatment of the cleaners!) but have to buy from elsewhere such as Asda because its cheaper.

You can't be ethical if you are one of the ones on low pay! Poundland and Aldi/Lidl are your lot whether they are ethical on pay or not.

Your argument is little different to the "I am all right jack, you can be to" types I referred to above. That is saying, in effect, "If you don't want low paying employers shop at John Lewis or accept low paid workers" is the same as "If you don't want to work at McDonalds, go to college or accept your low paid job". Impossible for many in both cases.

In short in I don't think you have a valid point.

Low pay won't change because I and others in my position who are able to do so try and use the Ethical Consumer web site!

It's a new slant on victim blaming.

Essentially what you're doing is a form of what I touched on earlier: obviating the employer of responsibility.

In case you hadn't noticed, a lot of people shop at cheap stores because they're low-paid and struggling too.

And one of the reasons that those stores can charge less is that they screw the producers and suppliers. But doubtless that'll be someone else's fault too.

As only a very slight aside, Charles Fishman, in his The Wal-Mart Effect, shows that, about five years after Wal-Mart has set up a big store in an area, poverty in that area has increased slightly.

Well said. It's linked to another discussion on here recently about the disparity between pay of those at the bottom and the CEO and the suggestion in Switzerland that the ratio should be no more than 1 to 12. When you consider some wages are too low to live off when those at the top in this case are four of the 12 richest people in the world then no amount of economic theory can justify that. It is downright immoral, pure and simple.

Spot on.

And just to extend what you say about it being "easy to claim that the low-skilled shelf-stacker should have tried harder at school", if there is a job that needs doing, then it needs doing. If everyone had "tried harder at school", then there'd be nobody to do the job that needs doing.

In which case, the person doing that job should be paid a wage that allows them to live.

Pretty much spot on.
Welcome back BTW.

I think you're missing something explicit in what I wrote, people shop at these places because the prices are low, the prices are low (at least in part) due to low wages paid to staff, because wages are one of the biggest variable costs that a business has. You could force a statist intervention to raise wages, but that will just push the higher cost somewhere else, like higher prices which the customer will then have to pay (they might squeeze the supply chain, but that just pushes it around - lower wages somewhere else). It's the same circular logic as goes round in tax incidence arguments, nobody doubts its possible to force higher costs, its only self-deception that believes these higher costs will not simply flow to the groups that ultimately bear the costs in a different way.

I'm not doing any such thing, I'm just pointing out that in the much maligned "real world" somebody ultimately has to bear the costs, and short of some magic totem that can fill the gaping hole in the argument, if you increase the costs the increase will flow to those who ultimately bear the costs. It's not magic, people want cheap prices so suppliers squeeze costs, and some costs are easier to squeeze than others to keep those prices low. For the argument to be serious it has to at least offer an explanation that gets to an end point without dropping down a hole, then you can judge how strong it is.

I think that would be a good solution to the issue. If the CEO wants a high salary, the rest of their employees have to earn no less than 1/12 (or similar) of their wage and I would include benefits and bonuses as well. This would not only give the rest of the employees a fairer wage but limit the excessive wages of those at the top.

When a company in "the real world" is massively profitable, it's pretty easy to see where the money can come from. And Wal-Mart apparent profits of more than $15 billion in 2012.

Only people who rate increased profits above a workforce being paid decently would conclude otherwise. For clarity: I'm not saying profit per se is a bad thing or that a company should not make profit. But that when companies make vast profits, it's pretty easy to see where the money for decent wages can come from without any great suffering and without the costs being hoiked onto the suppliers etc.

Why should the taxpayer be left to pick up the tab when hugely profitable companies pay such low wages that people cannot afford to live? Or perhaps people should just have to choose between, say, food and heat?

And that's without mentioning the knock-on effects on the wider economy.

And the likes of Wal-Mart is already screwing suppliers and producers. Every time they announce more cuts to prices, they hand on the cost of those deals. This is well documented.

Are you really suggesting that the corporate world is no place for ethics or morality? If that's the case, perhaps it will be acceptable for chronically low paid workers to steal from the store to feed themselves?

Seconded