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 !