‘£10 AN HOUR is the bare minimum that the trade union movement should demand as a minimum wage’, the Bakers Union said yesterday, as the ‘new living wage’ rates were announced.
The ‘new Living Wage’ rates, announced yesterday of £9.15 in London (up from £8.80) and £7.85 nationally (up from £7.65), set by the Living Wage Foundation, is 21% higher than the £6.50 hour current minimum wage which employers are by law obliged to respect.
However there is no obligation for employers to pay the living wage and only a 1,000 employers across the entire country have adopted the living wage, benefiting just 35,000 workers.
With the cost of living spiralling and working families being driven into abject poverty, the Bakers union is demanding that the TUC take action to uphold their conference pledge to fight for a minimum wage higher than the new London Living wage.
Ian Hodson president of the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union, told News Line: ‘We moved a resolution at the TUC conference that the minimum wage, not the living wage, the minimum wage, must be £10 an hour, that got unanimously passed at conference, so that is now TUC policy.
‘It is our opinion that £10 an hour would mean that workers would not endlessly fill in forms because they are living in poverty.
‘It is an absolutely shocking situation that we live in a society where five million working people rely on in-work benefits and 30 million of us have actually lived in food poverty.
‘A million people last year had to rely on food parcels from the Trussell Trust Food Banks!
‘The TUC must push for the £10 an hour minimum wage, that is TUC policy.
‘Marching around London is not enough, the only way is direct action.
‘The TUC should be pushing for a general strike, that’s the only way to get what we are fighting for.
‘A £10 an hour minimum wage would reduce the need for families to receive in-work-benefits and instead the amount of tax money that would be saved could be used to invest in the NHS.
‘We could end tuition fees for university with the amount of money saved.’
KPMG, a UK limited liability partnership, have just published their own research which found that the number of people earning less than the Living Wage has grown by over 147,000 in the last year to some 5.28 million people.
However, rather than organise a fight, TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady appealed to the bosses’ better nature, she said: ‘The fact is there are employers out there who can afford to pay living wages, but aren’t.
‘It is now time for all responsible employers to commit to adopting this standard, which enables workers to earn just enough to be able to live a decent life.’
