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/