By Lisa Young
The Howard government is trying to push through legislation to cut junior wages. This is an attack on all workers. Living in Britain for the past two years, I've experienced first hand the reality of poverty pay.
For many in Britain, poverty wages mean not being able to afford a decent education or access to decent health care, and low living standards. It often results in the breakdown of relationships. It is estimated that in Scotland alone, 6000 people will die this winter because they cannot afford to keep their homes warm.
With the abolition of wage councils under the Tory government, British workers were left with no minimum wage or wage-setting councils. Employers had an open ticket to pay their staff as little as possible and make even bigger profits.
These profits, however, do not create more jobs, or increase wages. They go into the pockets of bosses and shareholders. Britain's highest paid directors now earn as much in a week as the average employee earns in a year.
Workers are being paid as low as £1.85 per hour, with no penalty rates for overtime or working on Sundays. Dixons, an electronic company with stores throughout Britain, pays some workers £2.10 per hour. Dixons' directors are on £58 per hour.
Sir Clive Thompson, Rentokil's chief executive and president of the bosses' Confederation of British Industry, was paid £1.45 million last year â almost £700 per hour!
Out of his firm's £400 million profits, he paid his workers on average just under £4.20 per hour â and many are on far less.
The gains won by workers over the past century â for full-time employment, decent wages and decent working conditions â have been taken away in Britain.
The Blair government's minimum wage, to be introduced early this year, is indeed minimum. It does not apply to 16- and 17-year-olds, pays £3 per hour for 18-20-year-olds and £3.50 per hour to workers 21 and over. The European Decency Threshold recommends a minimum wage of £6 per hour in Britain.
In some cases where employees are currently earning over the intended minimum wage, employers are using this to reduce wages.
Cleaning contractors for a well-known company that makes billions of pounds profits are on a whopping £3.88 per hour at the moment. When their contract finishes, this will be reduced to the minimum wage of £3.50 per hour!
Paying lower wages will not encourage employers to employ more people. Employment in Britain has not increased, even though companies' profits are soaring. In fact, over the past year, thousands of jobs have been slashed. Bosses do not want to eat into their ever-increasing profits, so they put more demands on the remaining employees to work harder, longer and at lower wages.
At last year's Labour Party conference, Blair came out in support of these companies, telling workers to work harder. With thousands of people forced into unemployment, the prospect of poverty pay and poor working conditions does little to encourage people to enter the work force.
The British unemployment rate stands at 6.3%. However, under Labour's new training projects, such as Welfare to Work, many people are taken off unemployment benefits and placed in low-paid, short-term work. These people are not included in the unemployment statistics, so in reality unemployment is much higher.
There are also some areas in Britain, like Scotland, that have a higher concentration of poverty. A recent poll in Glasgow found that 48% of children currently have parents relying on some form of benefit.
Keeping many people on welfare works in the bosses' favour, as it creates a large disposable work force that keeps wages low and morale down.
If the attacks on youth wages in Australia succeed, employers will use this to employ youth workers at poverty pay at the expense of employees on adult wages.
The Howard government will claim the example of increased youth employment as a success and a reason to slash adult wages, without revealing the real reasons for the boost in youth employment.
Professor Dan Hamermesh, the Howard government's expert, stated that Australia's youth and minimum wages were high compared with other countries. The truth is that the minimum wages in other countries are too low.
We cannot allow the Howard government and fat cat bosses to follow in the steps of Britain and attack our wages. Companies are already making huge profits. We must defend the right to full-time employment and decent wages for all workers.