Posts Tagged ‘Minimum wage’

You can’t de-politicise the minimum wage

by Diane Abbott.

Julia Unwin’s article in Rupert Murdoch’s Times newspaper this week would be laughable if it was not also symptomatic of a wider problem. Julia is the Chief Executive of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust and this week she took to the pages of the national newspaper to chide the leader […]

Why Britain needs a pay rise

by Mike Hedges.

Tomorrow the TUC demonstration will be highlighting why Britain needs a pay rise. The extent to which people’s living standards have dropped is greater than ever before. I was shocked when a Unite bus driver told me how every month his wife’s parents have to give them £200 to be able to pay their rent and […]

What Tories really think of the minimum wage

by Grahame Morris.

David Cameron’s welfare minister has advocated treating those most in need differently by paying them below the national minimum wage. Lord David Freud, talking amongst friends at Conservative Party Conference, said he thought there was “a group” of disabled people who are “not worth the full wage”. Lord Freud is not the only Conservative seeking to […]

Germans to get ‘amputated’ minimum wage

by Tom Gill.

The German parliament this week approved the country’s first minimum wage but unions and critics on the Left are not much impressed. The wage – backed by a vote in the Bundestag on Thursday – will be set at €8.50 (£6.80) per hour, which is higher than the equivalent in the US and UK. Angela Merkel’s […]

Miliband’s linking minimum wage to earnings could benefit up to 5m low-paid

by Michael Meacher.

Low pay in Britain is scandalous, and it has got considerably lower since 2010. Low pay is conventionally defined as the number of workers paid less than the Living Wage of £7.45 per hour outside London and £8.80 in London, and on that basis workers on low pay have increased by almost 2 millions since […]

Minimum wage – is Osborne a convert to predistribution?

by Dave Watson.

While I would always welcome a convert to the case for increasing wages, I suspect George Osborne is less a repenting sinner, he is more likely eyeing an opportunity to cut the benefits bill. George Osborne’s hint that the minimum wage might go up to £7 was been a popular news story last week. I did […]

One law for bosses who pay below minimum wage, another for the jobless

by Michael Meacher.

Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs (HMRC), those sleuths ruthlessly tracking down tax avoiders, seem to turn the same blind eye to employers paying their workers below the national minimum wage. Some 300,000 workers have been found paid less than £6.31 an hour, yet only 2 firms have been prosecuted! This is despite the fact that […]

Red scare: could a socialist break through in Seattle?

by Tom King.

Much of the UK coverage of America’s off-year elections has focused on the results coming from the East Coast. The election of a Democrat Mayor of New York (and a pretty left wing one at that) for the first time since 1993. The re-election of New Jersey Governor, and potential GOP presidential candidate, Chris Christie. […]

Labour must defend the minimum wage

by Calum Sherwood.

As the economy continues to stagnate, with the Tory-Liberal government actively pursuing anti-growth policies which have driven out any hint of recovery , government fixation with austerity now threatens the consensus around the minimum wage as the government plans to use it a scapegoat to blame for the their failed economic policies. A few weeks […]

Yes to the living wage: but it’s still too low

by Michael Meacher.

Bully for the Milibands. The national minimum wage was never meant to be as low as it is – in today’s economic conditions £6.19 an hour for people 21 and over and £4.98 for those 18-20. The original intention of Rodney Bickerstaffe, the former general secretary of Unison and main architect of its introduction in […]

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