During the early fifties employers were the instigators of a new driving force in the minds of employees, though they had cast the idea 'upon the water' before. A new financial incentive was established that became popular among progressive employers at the time. Dispensation of such incentives led to many related schemes of deceitful concept, arising from the premise that the incentive was payable only on the basis of a promise. Regardless of the extra profits generated by the extra effort of the employees, it was not a contractual obligation for employers to pay extra money for the extra work done. These promissory bonuses, as they were called, are still in use today, and are based solely on the promise of additional earnings.  It has certainly kept basic rates of pay down.  It continues, and slithers smooth as silk into the minds of today's workers.

Generally speaking, it was implemented on the basis of increased productivity, not because of a shortage of labour or other imbalance in the economy. Whatever, it led to a rise in heated disagreements and disputes under its promissive veil of unfulfilled promises.  Employers gave it the name:  BONUS.

I mention this, because this disguised form of oppression opened the door to yet another alternative, one which affected my own working life even more. I refer to the incentive called sub contracting     through which the self-employed worker pays Income Tax and National Insurance contributions directly to the government. By quoting to employers a fixed price for work done for a main contractor, and being paid according to one's 'measured work', employers soon learned that sub contracting cut their costs still further.  They could employ fewer staff, and had no National Insurance or Income Tax liabilities to pay on their behalf. One might say, the same swings, but cheaper roundabouts.

While employers all too often had excuses for cheating their PAYE employees of promised bonus payments, they still honoured verbal agreements with self-employed workers. This  proved to be a way of promoting greater numbers of their own kind. ⁽⁸⁾  This cunning pretence of generosity is yet another example of the subtle complexity of commercial "Babylon".

It was as a result of the rapidly changing work ethic, from bonus to self-employment, that I travelled from place to place in what seemed endless endeavour     making and installing joinery in new houses, flats, shops, schools, pubs, civic and commercial offices, etc. And although I worked at too many joinery benches and too many building sites to mention here, the irony is that for the last thirty years I have not made or fixed any joinery at all (except for the odd piece at home)!

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