It's Young Workers' Month

November is the Trade Union Congress' Young Workers' Month.

Why do we need Young Workers' Month ?

• Presently there are 683,000 people aged 16-24 (or 14.8%) who are looking for and available for work: youth unemployment rate is nearly three times the rate for all workers aged 16+ 
• In 2014 19.6% of young workers were underemployed, more than double the percentage of any other age group. Underemployed workers are those people who have jobs but want to work more hours than they currently do. Young workers have consistently been twice as likely to be underemployed than workers in general, meaning it has become commonplace for them to be trapped in jobs that don’t have enough hours to provide the income they need.
• 255,000 young people (or 6.7%) are in zero hours contracts, meaning that the proportion of people in zero hours contracts is three times higher for young people than the adult population generally.
• Young people’s wages fell disproportionately further than those of older workers during the downturn. Between 2009 and 2014 median hourly earnings for 22-29 year olds (excluding overtime and RPIJ-adjusted) fell by 12.7%, 
• The inevitable consequence of this low pay is young people finding it harder and harder to get by. The most recent figures show that 1 in 5 (22.4%) young people are at risk of poverty.

The National Minimum Wage- introduced in 1998- allows a lower rate for workers under 21.  The Government's wrongly-called "national living wage" coming in next year, will only apply to the over 25's- leaving young workers falling further behind.

TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady said: “Younger workers must be treated fairly. It is wrong to leave 21 to 24 year olds out: they face the same expenses as other adults and are highly productive. Not paying them the full minimum wage will demotivate younger adults, who will get less pay than their colleagues for the same work."

Eastbourne Borough Council- to its shame- takes full advantage of the young worker rates: our freedom of information request showed that during August 2015 47 young staff (6% of the council workforce) were paid less than the minimum wage rate of £6.50 an hour. 

Why Should Young Workers Join a Union ?

Eastbourne: Poverty Pay in the Public Sector

EASTBOURNE BOROUGH COUNCIL: 42% of staff paid less than Living Wage

EAST SUSSEX COUNTY COUNCIL: 27% of staff paid less than Living Wage

EAST SUSSEX  HOSPITALS (DGH): 11% of staff paid less than Living Wage. 

As it is Living Wage week, we were keen to look at the situation for workers in Eastbourne. Eastbourne has many staff employed in the hospitality, leisure and retail sectors, all of which have traditionally been low-paid- although Morrisons and Lidl have recently joined the ranks of Living Wage employers. A number of other employers active in Eastbourne have also signed up to the Living Wage foundation's Living Wage accreditation, paying all staff over 18 £8.15 or more. You can read these here

Brighton and Hove City Council is accredited as a Living Wage employer, and Hastings Borough Council pays all of its directly employed staff above the Living Wage rate. So the public sector is setting a good example, yes ?...... Sadly not in Eastbourne !

East Sussex County Council employs a total of 16,200 people (many are part time and/or casual- the full time equivalent is 8,717 )   Of these, a staggering 4,373 are paid below the living wage rate- that's 27% of the council's workforce.

Eastbourne Borough Council employed 741, and 314 of these were paid less than the living wage. This equates to just over 42% of the council workforce.

Of those, we established that 27 were under 18 (the age at which the Living Wage Foundation expects their accredited employers to pay the Living Wage.)

Shockingly, the Borough Council still takes advantage of the lower rates within the national minimum wage to pay under 21's even less:  47 staff were paid less than the adult national minimum wage of £6,50 !

Perhaps the NHS would be better ?

Sussex Community NHS Trust, the main provider of NHS community health and care services across West Sussex, Brighton & Hove and High Weald, Lewes and Havens area of East Sussex has been paying the Living Wage since 2013. Sussex Partnership NHS Trust which provides services for those with mental health problems, learning disabilities or an addiction to drugs or alcohol have agreed to do the same at Board Level and are currently looking at the logistics around implementation.

As for the good old East Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs Eastbourne DGH- not such good news..... as we reported earlier, of a total workforce of 7314 across the trust (including the Conquest Hopsital in Hastings) 790 people were paid less than the Living Wage: around 11% of the workforce.

Trades Council secretary, Dave Brinson recalls: "I was in a meeting a couple of years ago, when an official of the Borough council berated me for suggesting that the town was a 'low wage' economy, This would seem to prove a point- and the Borough Council itself is at the forefront of perpetuating it !"

Source for EBC and ESCC information: FoI request by Dave Brinson, covering August pay period. Source for NHS information, FoI request by Unison. 

REAL Living Wage Week !

First published on the Eastbourne Trades Council website 2.11.15

Living Wage Week is a UK-wide celebration of the Living Wage and Living Wage Employers.

This year Living Wage Week begins on Sunday 1 November and runs to Saturday 7 November.
The week sees accredited Living Wage Employers across the country celebrate their commitment to the Living Wage.

The Living Wage is an hourly rate set independently and updated annually. It is calculated according to the basic cost of living using the ‘Minimum Income Standard’ for the UK. Decisions about what to include in this standard are set by the public; it is a social consensus about what people need to make ends meet.

Don't buy into the George Osborne dishonest talk of the new "living wage": the real Living Wage is independently calculated based on EVIDENCE !:

Living Wage Foundation Director, Rhys Moore explains: "The Living Wage is a robust calculation that reflects the real cost of living, rewarding a hard day’s work with a fair day’s pay."

New research reveals that almost six million people (23% of the working population) are paid less than the living wage. This is nearly half a million more than last year and an increase for the third year in a row – up from 21% in 2013 and 22% in 2014.

Low Pay Scandal at the DGH !

UNISON Hastings & Eastbourne Healthcare branch issued a Freedom Of Information request to East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust, which runs Eastbourne DGH  and the Conquest Hospital in Hastings,  to establish the numbers of staff which do not receive the Living Wage (Currently £7.85 per hour)

The Trust has provided the following information on the numbers of staff who are currently paid less than £7.85 Living Wage.

Permanent Staff
321 staff ( 267.70 whole-time equivalent)

Fixed Term Temporary Staff
18 staff

Primary Assignment "Bank" staff  (i.e. do not have a substantive post elsewhere within the Trust)
451 zero hours contract (so no whole time equivalent available.)

This equates to approx. 11% of the Trust workforce (7314).

Unison said: "This is to form a part of our campaign to urge the Trust to become a Living Wage employer with all the positive aspects which that brings. Not only for the staff involved with an increase in their pay packets, but also for the Trust in recruitment and retention. A positive news story ...for the Trust is needed now more than ever."

Other NHS Trusts locally either pay the living wage or have made commitments to do so.
Sussex Community NHS Trust has been paying the Living Wage since 2013. Sussex Partnership NHS Trust have agreed to do the same at Board Level and are currently looking at the logistics around implementation. Brighton and Hove CCG also pays the Living Wage.
Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS pay the Living Wage for all current staff other than Bank and new starters.

Amazon- Pay your staff and pay your taxes !

To finish off Fair Pay Fortnight- why not sign the GMB's petition against low pay by one of the world's best known companies.  While Amazon does not employ staff in Eastbourne, many Eastbourne customers use their services, and all Eastbourne taxpayers subsidize the poverty pay that Amazon offers its staff- many of whom are forced to rely on Tax Credits and Housing Benefit ! Amazon, meanwhile, pays a tax rate equivalent to less than 1% !  

GMB explain:

Amazon offers "jobs of last resort" to the communities where they build their warehouses, currently Inverclyde, Dunfermline, Swansea, Rugeley, Bedford, Peterborough, Hemel Hempstead, Doncaster and Croydon. They employ tens of thousands of people, mostly on temporary contracts and at arm’s length through agencies.

Most of the time, according to GMB members, Amazon is not helping people off benefits and into work permanently - their employment practices lock people into the revolving door of low paid temporary work and Job Seekers Allowance - making already hard hit towns and communities even poorer.

In Amazon the National Minimum Wage (NMW) has become the maximum wage for most staff, who cannot get enough hours of work and live in fear of losing their job. Few Amazon staff can make ends meet without claiming ‘in work’ benefits while they work for Amazon. According to a survey of Amazon staff:

91% would not recommend working for Amazon to a friend.
70% of staff felt they were given disciplinary points unfairly.
89% felt exploited.
78% felt their breaks were too short
71% reported they walked more than 10 miles a day at work.


GMB - the trade union for Amazon staff - is campaigning with local communities, tax justice groups and Amazon staff to make sure the company makes its full contribution to rebuilding the UK economy - both by paying wages its staff can live on and by paying its taxes.

In the last three tax years for which information is known Amazon has paid only £4.24 million tax on £10.82 billion sales: a tax rate of less than 0.5%. Yet at the moment Amazon is heavily subsidised by taxpayers in three ways:

• Through the Tax Credits and Housing Benefit their staff have to claim to make ends meet due to their low wages and short term jobs 
• Through the millions of pounds in grants they get from national and local government to build roads, street lighting and land clearance every time they build a new warehouse.
• Through their exploitation of tax loopholes that means they pay Corporation Tax at a fraction of the rate their low paid staff pay.

GMB say it's time to end the something for nothing culture - It's time Amazon paid their way. We urge all staff at Amazon to join GMB to protect their job, get back up when they need it and join our campaign for better pay, secure working hours and a safe workplace.

GMB are campaigning to ensure Amazon:

• Allows staff access to GMB where they work to get the employment advice and back up they need 
• Pays a fairer wage so that its staff don't have to claim ‘in work’ benefits
• Provide more permanent contracts of employment with enough hours of work for families to have the security the need 
• Improves its approach to safety and long term health at work to protect employees from the effects of its work practices 
• Pays its taxes 
• Acts responsibly towards the local communities it disrupts with its activities

Support GMB's campaign- Sign the Petition!

Zero Hours Survey from Citizens Advice

Are you working in Eastbourne on a zero-hours or variable-hours contract ? Eastbourne Citizens Advice Bureau would like to hear about your experiences. Take the survey by clicking here.

Church needs to practice what it preaches !

The Church of England has been vocal in its backing for the Living Wage- with the Archbishop of York heading the Living Wage commission, and the Bishops writing to parishes last week on the subject ("Who is my neighbour")

So today's front page headline, in The Sun no less ("Wages of Sin") exposing how some churches and dioceses were advertising for jobs at the minimum wage, has caused more than a little embarrassment. This has been acknowledged by the Archbishop of Canterbury today, when he admitted that the Church had "fallen short of the standard".

What of the staff employed by the churches in Eastbourne, or by the Diocese of Chichester ? We don't know the full picture, which is why the Trades Council will be writing to all of the Church of England parishes in Eastbourne  this week to ask whether they are employing staff on the Living Wage, and if not, what plans they have to achieve this. We will let you know the results on this page.

As employees, we would encourage all church staff to join an appropriate trade union.  In the early 1990's the MSF Union (now part of Unite) started to recruit clergy and other church staff- and Unite now has a thriving Faith Workers branch, with members in Eastbourne from both the clergy and lay staff. You can find out more here. The branch also has a regular newsletter which can be downloaded here, and a Branch Blog here.

Stop exploiting "apprentices" ! Minimum Wage NOW !!

Ever since the Minimum Wage was introduced, many trade unionists have been uncomfortable about the existence of "age related" lower rates. The GMB ran "Rage Over Age Rates" campaigns in the first term of the last Labour government.  Despite these campaigns, there remains a difference in age rates- over 21 year-old workers are entitled to the full Minimum Wage of £6.50 per hour; those 18-20 £5.13, while those 16-18 can be paid just £3.79 an hour.

HOWEVER- if you are on an apprenticeship, the law allows an even lower rate than this.  Apprentices aged 16-18, or over 19 in their first year can be paid a meagre £2.73 per hour.

Remember- the independently assessed Living Wage agrees that £7.85 is the minimum hourly rate to cover living costs- yet an adult worker can be employed on more than £5 per hour less than this, if they are classed as an apprentice.

Stephen Lloyd, the Lib Dem MP for Eastbourne is a great champion of the Apprenticeship scheme, and has vocally defended the existence of the poverty-pay apprenticeship rate - even to a meeting of Eastbourne Trades Council.

Parents of young people lose out if their son or daughter takes on an apprenticeship at an exploitative sub-minimum wage rate:

As apprenticeships aren’t included in the government’s ‘approved’ training category they can’t claim child benefit and lose their child tax credits also – but they could if their child was doing a course at the very same level full-time in the classroom. In the worst cases, parents can be thousands of pounds worse off per year if their child chooses the apprenticeship route. We already know that parents are a huge source of guidance for young people making choices about their education, but how can parents be expected to make such a reasoned judgement about their child’s choices when so much money is at stake?

The National Union of Students takes a different view from our coalition MP.  Their excellent report Forget Me Not blows apart some of the myths around the Apprenticeship scheme. It has taken evidence from real young people who are doing a full day's work, and yet living on levels of pay below those that were outlawed by the Minimum Wage when it was finally brought in by the then-Labour government in 1999 (the Minimum wage then was £3.60 per hour- 81p an hour more than apprentices are expected to live on nearly 16 years later)

"Take Paul, for example. He is in the first year of his social care apprenticeship and earns £109.02 a week on the apprentice minimum wage. After he’s paid for his weekly travelcard, his lunch and costs associated with his course he’s left with £71.76 a week. But, Paul doesn’t live with his parents and he also has to fund his rent from this leftover money. As a result he has to work in a pub a couple of nights a week, earning the national minimum wage in order to complete his apprenticeship and afford to live. This is not what apprenticeships were designed for."

The Government of which Stephen Lloyd is a (temporary) member has flirted with the poor by suggesting that the minimum wage for apprentices might be raised by a £1 an hour.  What they should do is say that young people and their families should not be punished for taking the decision to gain skills and qualifications, and rule that the minimum wage (still lower than a basic living wage) should apply to those in work- without exception.

Do you think a £2.79 an-hour minimum wage is a disgrace for apprentices ?  Write to Stephen Lloyd and tell him so, at https://www.writetothem.com/

A Living Wage for Cinema Workers- nationwide !

Time for a Living Wage and Union recognition at Picturehouse cinemas in Brighton and nationwide !

The cinema sector in the United Kingdom is a low wage employer with most of the big chains paying at or only just above the National Minimum Wage (£6.50 per hour - less if you are under 21). Things are a little better at independent cinemas but not much.

BECTU is the recognised trade union at Picturehouse's Ritzy Cinema in Brixton and members there were determined to win a pay rise. Following a long dispute earlier this year with 13 strikes and huge support on social media and in the press, members at The Ritzy are now earning £8.20 per hour with further rises happening during 2014 and 2015.

Unfortunately the staff at other cinemas owned by Picturehouse- including our colleagues down the road at the Brighton Duke of York Cinema-,  have not been offered the same increase. The company argue that they can't afford pay increases, despite the fact that last year their operating profits rose by 31% to £1.3 million. The parent company, Cineworld which owns Picturehouse, made profits of £31 million in 2013. So it's a profitable company and they can clearly afford to pay their staff more.

The people who work for Picturehouse in Brighton and across the country love their job, they love cinema, and helping to bring great films to the public. What they don’t love is the poverty wages they are paid.

Other independent cinemas can afford to pay the Living Wage with Curzon Cinemas (where BECTU is the recognised union for all its workers) recently implementing the Living Wage and the London Living Wage at all their cinemas both in London and across the UK.

The Ritzy is only one cinema owned by Picturehouse and although BECTU have members at many of their other cinemas the company won't talk to the union about recognition or pay.

One thing that helped change the company's mind in Brixton was pressure from their customers, who did not want to see staff at their local cinema exploited. Please help us build this petition and campaign to show them just how many of their customers nationwide believe that Picturehouse can and should pay their staff a Living Wage.

Click here to sign the petition !

Kick Out Poverty Pay !

Premier League football clubs have just got a ‘windfall’ that means they’ll receive £5.4 billion from TV deals. But whilst their top stars get millions, they’re still refusing to pay their ground staff a living wage! [1]

If enough of us get involved, we can change that. After a big public campaign, Chelsea FC has agreed to pay their lowest paid staff enough to cover basics like rent and food. Big petitions to the bosses of the other clubs could force them to follow suit.

There’s one petition per Premier League club. You can pick any, whether it's the club you support, or the one you live closest to and add your name to the petition:
https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/living-wage-football-petition

How can it be right that in an industry where top stars like Wayne Rooney make £300,000 a week, the people selling the tickets or preparing the pitch may be left struggling to pay the rent and put food on the table?

When an employer agrees to pay a living wage, it makes a huge difference to families struggling to get by. And more and more employers are doing it - thanks to customers and employees working together to push for a fair deal for all staff.

Football is an industry of huge inequality. But it relies on the support of millions of ordinary people. So it's a great opportunity to pile on the pressure and give low wages the red card - click here to add your name !

Care for the Care Staff !

Eastbourne has many hundreds of people working in the Social Care sector- providing vital services for our elderly and vulnerable residents.  However, conditions for many of these dedicated staff are a scandal !

Nationally, 220,000 care workers are illegally under-paid below the national minimum wage of £6.50 an hour. According to the National Audit Office 220,000 care workers are being exploited in this way.

This is in part because whilst the advertised rate may be above the minimum wage, most care workers are on zero hours or temporary agency contracts, with the employers cutting out paid time wherever they can. A full day on the job can translate into only a handful of paid hours.

In 2011 and 2013 HMRC investigated the care sector and found that only half of care providers were paying the national minimum wage. Thanks to their investigation several companies were forced to pay care workers the money that they were legally owed. 

One way employers under-pay home care workers is by only paying them for the time they spend caring for people in their own homes. This means the time they spend traveling between visits is unpaid.  Sadly many care workers are also not given enough time to care for people with dignity.

This puts care workers in an agonising position because they know they are being taken advantage of and are losing money they need for their own families, but they care deeply about the people they work with.

This sometimes puts care workers under pressure to leave their visits early to avoid having their wages pulled down.  Whereas others regularly stay longer and work for free to just make sure the person gets the care they need and deserve. 

Many good care workers get fed up with the situation and find other work, and the high turnover means a lack of continuity of care.

The Public Accounts Committee looked at the issue in the summer and said, “We are astonished that up to 220,000 care workers earn less than minimum wage and seemingly little has been done to rectify this”.
Unison has launched a petition calling on the (Lib Dem) Secretary of State for Industry to act to end this scandal.  You can sign the petition here !

Citizens UK has a major campaign calling for a charter of rights for workers in the care sector- including payment of the Living Wage.  Find out more here.

Britain Needs a Pay Rise !

It's getting harder to make our pay packets stretch until the end of the month and more and more people are falling into debt. In this new animation we follow the lives of Gareth and Aisha and the everyday challenges faced by millions of people who've been hit by the cost of living crisis.

The animation was created for the TUC's Britain Needs A Pay Rise campaign - a campaign to restore fairness to the nation's incomes.

It's Fair Pay Fortnight !

Working people in the UK are seeing their living standards squeezed harder and harder every year. The cost of energy, food and housing is soaring but wages aren’t keeping up.

6.1 MILLION people in working households are living in poverty. This means that (excluding pensioners) there are more working households in poverty than there are workless households !

Full time workers have lost on average over £4,000 in wages since 2009 and while jobs may be returning to the economy, they’re increasingly low paid, low hours and low security.

Eastbourne has many workers who are employed in low-wage and zero-hours contracts. Eastbourne definitely needs a pay rise !