WITH the minimum wage looking like being set at #3.60 per hour, has anyone in the Government thought about setting a maximum wage?
Perhaps a proportion of the obscene amounts being paid to some business executives could be used for reinvestment or, better still, to increase the rather insulting minimum wage.
Huck Bergius,
7 Victoria Circus, Glasgow.
May 28.
MILLIONS of workers have long awaited a national minimum wage that makes it a criminal offence to offer some of the amounts currently handed out as wages in sweatshop Scotland.
How bitterly disappointed they will be at the Government's Low Pay Commission report, which recommends #3.60 an hour for workers over 21, and at best #3.20 for those aged 18-21.
This kind of level is not a solution to poverty; it is a pathetic sop. It is a ringing condemnation of late twentieth-century Britain that 1.5 million workers would thereby gain some wage increase. But by the time lost benefits are accounted for, many of them would be no better off.
The ultimate condemnation of New Labour's proposals is the support for them by people like British Airways' multi-millionaire Sir Colin Marshall.
Equally offensive is the fact New Labour is set to bring in more exemption clauses than the worst second-hand-car salesman. Trainees of all ages are to be excluded, giving unscrupulous employers the loophole to invent ''training'' in shelf-stacking and floor-sweeping. The so-called self-employed, who include 1.5 million workers officially living in poverty, are excluded. So too are all workers under 18, who constitute a vast proportion of the lowest paid.
There is no excuse for these exemptions; they amount to an exploiters' charter.
That is why thousands will join the Scottish demo against slave labour in George Square at midday on Sunday June 14. This rally has been called by the Scottish Socialist Alliance, co-sponsored by several trade unions including the Scottish Fire Brigades Union; Glaciers engineering stewards committee; local RMT branches; local trades councils; Dundee social work UNISON stewards; Cumbernauld Inland Revenue PCS union, etc.
The demo will demand a decent minimum wage for all over 16, without exception, trainees included. As an absolute bottom line, this should not be a penny less than the #4.62 an hour demanded by the STUC and numerous union conferences, as a modest first step towards a minimum wage based on the European Decency Threshold, which says we need #6 an hour in Scotland for the bare necessities of a decent life.
The trade-union leaders should not cave in to Blair's cheap sop; they should not disappoint millions of workers seeking a life-line from poverty. They should join the demo, refuse to accept anything below #4.62 an hour, and fight for an end to slave labour under New Labour.
Richie Venton,
Trade Union Organiser,
Scottish Socialist Alliance,
73 Robertson Street, Glasgow.
May 29.
ANYONE who finds #3.60 per hour ''acceptable'' as a minimum wage in Scotland, or the UK for that matter, must be completely ignorant of the ''real life'' cost of living and providing for a family.
I really do wonder just how much consultation was done between the ''knighted'', and ''chairman of the board'' types, and community representatives up and down the country. None, I expect.
This figure will do nothing to close the gap between the haves and have-nots in society. Once again this Government has let an opportunity go by, but I for one am not surprised.
Graham McDonald,
88 Stirling Road,
Larbert.
May 28.
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