As part of our series of Challenge Poverty Week blogs, STUC Campaigns & Communications Officer, Rachel Thomson, discusses the Real Living Wage and the Mitie cleaners fighting for decent pay.

As Sajid Javid announces a rise in the UK government’s “National Living Wage”[1] by 2024, it’s important to remind ourselves what a real living wage looks like and show solidarity with those fighting for it across Scotland and the rest of the UK.

The graphic above is a good guide on what constitutes the “Real Living Wage” and the UK government’s shrewdly named “National Living Wage” in 2019. Importantly, the Real Living Wage is a wage that is based on the cost of living, the UK government’s National Living Wage is not.

It’s important to note that poverty pay in the UK is gendered and racialised, with women making up nearly two thirds (62%) of workers currently struggling to make ends meet on less than the real Living Wage[2]. Pakistani and Bangladeshi women are affected the most out of all racial groups[3].

The UK has a long history of trade unions successfully campaigning alongside campaign groups and communities, and taking industrial action to increase low pay. At the moment, the RMT are campaigning for the real Living Wage for the Mitie cleaners. Network Rail, the UK’s arm’s length public body of the Department for Transport, outsources the work of cleaning several major train stations across Scotland and England to a company called Mitie Facilities Management, part of the Mitie Group plc.

While the Mitie Group has paid out an astonishing £49 million to its shareholders in dividends over the last five years[4], they insist on only paying their cleaning staff £8.40 per hour. Cleaning, like care work and catering, is often viewed as “women’s work” and is drastically undervalued as a result of this. Earning £8.40 per hour is locking the Mitie cleaners into poverty, while their shareholders and CEO increasingly get richer.

As the cost of living continues to get higher both in Scotland in the rest of the UK, surviving on such a low hourly rate is having increasingly negative impacts on the wellbeing of workers and their families.’. In a recent RMT survey of the Mitie cleaners, 50% of respondents said they were struggling to make ends meet. Respondents reported pay was “only just about enough to pay bills and that’s it”. Respondents also described it as “a continual struggle” and reported “doing without” to cope with budgeting on such a low wage.

The workers are fighting back. With the support of their union, Mitie cleaners have held a series of campaigning actions outside key stations which are cleaned by them. 82,000 people have signed a petition in support of the cleaners, and several motions supporting the campaign have been tabled at both Westminster and Holyrood. Over the next six days, workers will be back leafleting outside six different stations across the UK to increase public awareness of their struggle.

Real Living Wage wins are possible when workers stand together. Just last week, contracted out catering staff working for the Department for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) won the Living Wage after a successful strike by PCS members[5].

In any just society, paying workers at least a real Living Wage is a moral imperative. Workers coming together to collectively campaign for a real Living Wage is crucial to solving poverty. Trade Unions owe it to their members to make it a priority and we owe it as trade unionists to show solidarity with their struggle.

You can support the MITIE cleaners in their fight for the Real Living Wage by signing their petition here: https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/pay-the-living-wage-to-mitie-cleaners-now

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49881980

[2] https://www.livingwage.org.uk/news/news-women-continue-be-hit-hardest-low-wages-uk

[3] https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/sites/default/files/research-report-108-the-ethnicity-pay-gap.pdf

[4] https://www.rmt.org.uk/news/rmt-justice-for-mitie-cleaners-campaign-events-this-week/

[5] https://www.pcs.org.uk/news/caterers-at-beis-win-london-living-wage-in-landmark-victory

As part of our series of Challenge Poverty Week blogs, STUC Policy Officer, Francis Stuart, discusses the role of public services in fighting poverty and inequality.

Sometimes, in Scotland we can pretend we are a beacon of progressive equality. But as recent studies show, poverty and inequality are rising from already historically high levels. Looking back over the last 25 years (a period in which parties of varying stripes and colours have held power in Holyrood and Westminster) we can see that income gains have been captured by those at the top.

Authors analysis based on Scottish Government data

As I’ve written previously, addressing this economic inequality will require strong political movements and institutions willing to fight for transformative change. That means more powerful, active trade unions as well as more independent community groups and anti-poverty organisations.

But what demands should these movements coalesce around?

Recently, anti-poverty campaigners have successfully lobbied for new cash benefits, in the form of a ‘family income supplement’ to help address child poverty. In a market economy, putting money in people’s pockets is undoubtedly important, and the new supplement will help reduce poverty, particularly among lone mothers.

However, moving forward, there is a risk that greater social security benefits comes to be seen as the de-facto response. The point of this blog is ultimately to say that we shouldn’t forget the role of public services.

While the Nordic welfare states, often held up as beacons of equality, do have generous social security systems, their primary means of redistribution is through public services.

Historically in the UK, the development of council housing, the NHS, and nationalised industries and services was a primary method through which inequality was addressed.

And still today, public services are more valuable than cash benefits to all decile groups in the UK, including those at the bottom of the income distribution. They are also more likely to maintain public support.

Investing in the wages of public service workers also has a direct impact on poverty and inequality. Large numbers of public service workers, particularly women, are low paid and living in poverty. Investing in health and care, education and council services can help address poverty and inequality; boost the wages of low-paid female workers and create a more caring society. Investing in publicly owned green infrastructure could also help transform our economy in a more equal manner while providing solutions to the climate emergency which we know the market won’t fix.

It is worth acknowledging that the debate between universal basic services vs a universal basic income is in many ways a proxy for some of these issues. In reality, tackling poverty and inequality will probably require both.

However, as a collective endeavour, public services can be an extremely efficient way of providing resources to enable people to participate in society. They should therefore be viewed as a crucial weapon in the fight against poverty and inequality.

As part of our series of Challenge Poverty Week blogs, STUC Policy Officer Sarah Collins discusses our forthcoming research, “Precarious Work, Precarious Lives”.

Poverty is not an accident. It is the result of deliberate ideological policy decisions and practices. The way in which work is organised is one of the key drivers of poverty.

The ten-year period since the financial crisis represents the UK’s longest pay squeeze in 200 years.^[1] This stagnant wage growth impacts particularly on women, young people, disabled people and ethnic minorities.  In this time, precarious work[2] has increased throughout the labour market.  The number of gig workers has doubled across the UK in the past three years whilst income inequality continues to increase.

Precarity is not new in employment but the last decade has seen an increase in the range of sectors experiencing this form of working. These precarious ways of working are often used as tools of exploitation and control by the employer and this insecurity, coupled with high rates of low pay, creates more insecure living arrangements and increased debt. People are now living precariously as well as working precariously.

The STUC is publishing a report, ‘Precarious Work, Precarious Lives’, on 22^nd October following research conducted with workers in distribution, hospitality, retail and creative industries. Three themes – Time, Control, and Trust – emerged.

Precarious workers often face a double burden with respect to both ‘time poverty’ and ‘financial poverty’. Workers on low hour contracts receive have less wages, but spend more time looking for other work or taking on a second job.  When workers are on low pay, they will often end up working more than 48 hours per week in order to make ends meet.  In many cases, the research showed the time-consuming battle to get the best shifts and rotas saps unpaid time from workers, contributes to stress, and leads to exhaustion. Dealing with the issue of time was a first order issue for workers.

A young man working in hospitality discussed how his whole life felt controlled by working in jobs with low pay and high hours.   “Aye, it’s looking quite bleak like, this idea of a debt occurring to sort of get through despite working full time hours. Like I do a 72 hour week, I’m thinking that should cover at least two weeks out of this next month coming and it’s like nah, overdraft it is. And that isn’t even with nights out or anything, that’s just basic getting by. My mum works as a part-time carer so we’re putting both of our wages together so we can pay our monthly rent and the way we, we have no control, we can’t say no I’m going to do this, or I’m going to do out and do this or let’s go for dinner or let’s get something nice in the night, it’s just always, always thinking about money.”

Precarity (from zero hours contracts, low pay, gig work, and casual work) as a business model is a decision made by an employer, and is often used as a tool of control by the employer.  The creation of mistrust and competition between workers is a form of control which employers use to perpetuate forms of precarious work.

However, an atmosphere of camaraderie and friendship is also possible in precarious settings. This solidarity is an essential foundation that is needed to create strong trade unions which are key in ensuring effective collective bargaining structures. These union structures, which allow workers to negotiate effectively with employers on all terms and conditions, drive up wages and therefore have a direct impact on mitigating against poverty.

^[1] New PAYE data shows employment income in Scotland averaged 2.7% in the 9 months to December 2018 – HMRC (April 2019) Earnings and Employment Statistics from Pay As You Earn Real Time Information: Experimental Statistics April 2014 to December 2018 Quarterly estimates from HMRC PAYE RTI administrative system 

[2] Including zero hours, short hour contracts, casual contracts, fixed term contracts, work via agencies, and bogus self-employment

As part of Challenge Poverty Week 2019, the STUC Youth Committee are hosting an event, “Power Not Precarity: Creating a Young Workers Charter” on the 12th of October at the STUC Centre.  You can find more details on the event here.