no cuts allowed

I came up with a cunning plan. Instead of working for a lower wage - which was rejected by the fluffy, corporocratic 'charity' which pays my wages - I would put in a voluntary day. The same wage, but spread over more days. Win-win, you might think: win for the charity, which gets more free labour than it receives already from its numerous unpaid interns - and win for me, because I get what I asked for, only by a different means.

In fact, ever since the charity informed me that it wouldn't contemplate 'paying people differently' - and even though that is exactly what they do already - I have been behaving (a bit) like an intern. And they know it. The cunning plan has been in force for the past 10 months: paid work for 3 days, another 1, or 2 or 3 days as unofficial intern - and fiddling the work plan to make it look as though the work that takes 4, 5 or 6 days can be done in 3. They know it's a lie.

But they won't formalise the lie. They are happy for the lie to lie there, unacknowledged: they get the 4 or 5 days that they wanted me to work, and bank the cash. They are even happy, generally, to take on volunteers, and add them to the balance sheet as 'contributions in kind' (some, not all). But they won't add this contribution; and more importantly, they won't allow the grant that has been allocated to pay for 4 days' of my work to be redistributed: to be used to pay for 3 days' work, with the rest fed back into the project (with the funder's agreement).

The same amount of time would be spent on the project, but the money would go further. It can't be done, apparently.

Why not?

Because 'it's an unusual way of working'. Not, in other words, because it wouldn't be effective, or wouldn't get the work done, or would be to the detriment of the organisation or the project - or the funder. No - it's just unusual.

Does it occur to a charity which pretends to be working towards a change of culture in which everyone is equal, that proceeding only in a way which is 'usual' just may not change the world. Doing what is 'usual', in a usual way, according to the usual norms, preserves the status quo. It stultifies. Of course, the organisation would reply that they don't want to change that part of the world. What threatens them about this offer is that it lies outside their bounds of what is usual, and that it comes from someone who should be inside their 'change paradigm' - someone who is supposed to be endorsing and working for the very same change as they are.

So I am told - again - to sit inside the system and make the best of it. Thank you for the offer, but we do not wish to take it up. Four days' pay, or nothing; and at the rate we specify - the rate we have decided you are 'worth'.

Why does it matter so much? Why not just pocket the extra cash and redistribute it myself - Big Society style?

1. Because for various reasons, I neither 'need' nor want the extra cash. I reckon if 50% of the country can live off £23,000 or less (and many live off considerably less), then so can 'charity' workers.

Why should someone be obliged to take more money if they do not want it?

2. Because others need it (more).

3. Because this is taxpayers' money: it is a government grant. Surely at a time when cuts are all around, we should be encouraging not discouraging more effective use of taxpayers' money.

4. Because redistribution Big Society style is less good for the project: part of the 4th day's salary goes back to the government as income tax, leaving less to redistribute as I see fit. (This point obviously only holds if the project is deemed to be a better cause than others the government might identify - such as Trident, foreign wars, or ailing banks).

5. Because I know that once the money hits my pocket, I will be less likely to send the whole lot on: we can all identify personal 'needs' which seem more pressing than other causes. If it never gets as far as my pocket, those needs will mostly vanish.

6. Because if it hits my pocket, I will consciously or subconsciously regard it as 'mine', and myself as a noble benefactor for handing it on to others. I don't want to be (regarded as) a 'benefactor' for handing on money which I never wanted in the first place.

7. Because I do not believe that anyone is 'worth' more than anyone else; and it is a lie to pretend that monetary worth carries no element of 'worth' in a human, human-rightsy way. People are paid more (in charities as well as business) partly because their work, their contribution, is somehow regarded as more valuable than that of others. They are more 'important' to the organisation, less expendable.

I do not think that is a useful (or particularly nice) way of ordering people or society. For one thing, what message does it send to people at the bottom of the wage pile? For another, without the contributions of administrators, cleaners, volunteers, mere officers, and others, the managers would find it hard to manage. In fact, there would be nothing to manage (except themselves) and they would have less time to do so. What is it then that makes their work more valuable?

6. Because it is not true to argue - as they do - that the market has set the price, and people paid less would do a worse job, or would leave and look for another job. I know endless replacements for the people who would leave: people who would not leave, and in that respect would do a much better job. Salary, at least in the voluntary sector, does not guarantee commitment - quite the opposite.

7. Because if you are pretending to be working for equality, if you are working with - and for - the most vulnerable in society, it is hypocrisy to do so from a wildly unequal position, and where it is entirely within your power to equalise, at least to some degree.

8. Because what sort of a dumb response is 'it's unusual'. Buy yourselves a robot then.

9. Because the wealth of the rich world, and the rich earners of the rich world, is both obscene and unsustainable. Obscene, because others in their millions are dying for lack of resources, and because our wealth has been built up largely at their expense. Unsustainable, because wealth drives consumption and consumption needs to fall back. Why, after all, and as long as we already have our needs met, do we need bigger salaries - unless it is in order to increase consumption.

10. Because I do not want to be made to sit inside their artificial hierarchy of people-value or their market economics. Let them keep it, if they must, but I don't want to be a part of it. I do not want to be of 'medium' value, while others around me, whose work is equally essential - equally valuable - are told they are of lesser worth. I'm not, and nor are they.