National Living Wage — House of Commons, 2016-04-18
Topic: Labor
Justin Piers Richard Madders (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. We have heard examples today involving large national chains. We can all use our spending power to go elsewhere and support local businesses, which are the lifeblood of our communities We should not be surprised by the way this policy is panning out, because this is the way in which some employers have always operated—they see every issue that affects their business as an excuse to whittle away at the terms and conditions of their staff The Minister for Skills said in a written parliamentary answer, which my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford South (Judith Cummins) referred to earlier, that any changes to terms and conditions should be discussed and agreed with workers in advance. I am sure that that advice will come as a surprise to the Secretary of State for Health, given his approach to the junior doctors dispute. I am afraid that the idea that employers will wait for an agreement on these issues is fanciful and bears no relation to the reality on the ground Those who are represented by a trade union at least have a fighting chance, but the reality is that employers can and do change terms and conditions fairly frequently. When they do so, it is almost always to the detriment of the people they employ. Once an employer gives a notice of change, the employee has very little redress. If legal redress is an option, the introduction of employment tribunal fees has made that a most unlikely route, given the 80% drop in employment tribunal claims since fees were introduced My constituency of Ellesmere Port and Neston is one of the top five living wage blackspots for women working part time across the north-west, according to the TUC, with 66% earning less than the living wage. Any increase in basic pay has to be a step in the right direction for that group of workers, as long as it does not come at the expense of other elements of the pay package. It would be a mistake to claim that simply increasing basic pay means that there is now a fair workplace settlement. We know that many ruses and mechanisms are used to stop effective workplace protection, such as bogus self-employment and zero-hours contracts. This policy could even see the development of other scams. Some unscrupulous employers might sack people just before their 25th birthday just so that they can get someone on a cheaper rate. More apprenticeships that are apprenticeships in name only might pop up because they offer the chance for an employer to pay someone a lower rate for the same job. What will be done to tackle that Nearly half of all minimum wage jobs are in hospitality and retail—sectors that are both major employers in my constituency. I have conducted my own research into the practices of many of the national restaurant and fast food chains, which has revealed widespread abuse that the Government do not appear to be interested in tackling. The research, which was conducted at the end of last year, showed that 90% of the 9,000 outlets surveyed did not pay the real living wage. It also highlighted the widespread practice of what is known colloquially as "shift shafting", whereby staff are sent home at the start or in the middle of a shift if the outlet is not busy, without any pay or compensation. More than 80% of respondents to the survey admitted that they would do that. It means that people can end up out of pocket simply by going to work, through being made to wait around without pay and then being sent home without even having their travel costs reimbursed. I hear a lot about the Government wanting to get everyone into work who is able to work, but I hear no condemnation from them of the blatant exploitation of people who are trying to do the right thing, and find themselves out of pocket through the very act of going to work Let us make every job reward people with a wage that they can actually live on, but at the same time let us put in place a proper system of workplace protection so that a Government policy is not allowed to be undermined by unscrupulous employment practices that take away other benefits so that people end up no better off, and in some cases actually end up worse off. To achieve that, we need a fundamental change in the Government’s approach, starting with the recognition that trade unions and collective bargaining have a significant role to play in the future prosperity of our nation. We need a fundamental change not only in the Government’s attitude but in the attitude of many employers, with a move away from the bean-counting philosophy that views the worker as a disposable item ready to be replaced by a machine that does not question, expect to be paid or belong to a union. For many people, being in work means vulnerability and uncertainty about their future. How can we tolerate a situation in which people in work can routinely not know whether they will have earned enough to put food on their family’s table at the end of the day We should not be fooled into thinking that this policy is a panacea. The Institute for Fiscal Studies estimated that even with the new minimum wage, people with children will be £700 a year worse off thanks to other changes introduced by the Government. The reality is that we are having this debate because the law and culture in this country place far too little emphasis on employment rights. Until this place resolves to do something about that, the kind of injustices that we have heard about today will continue.