The post-war trend of average wages increasing by 3.8% ended in 2010 with Conservative austerity. The TUC plan is to restore that growth, which would deliver an average wage of £20 per hour by 2030. At the same time the Low Pay Commission would be tasked with delivering a minimum wage rate at 75% of average wages, looking beyond the current target of 66% by 2024, and that would deliver a £15 rate by 2030.
 
Paddy Lillis – Usdaw General Secretary says: “We are still suffering a severe hangover from the deeply damaging Tory austerity policies, which resulted in wage stagnation and now leaves workers totally exposed to a cost of living emergency. Action is needed to return average post-war wage growth to make the UK a high wage economy and deliver fairness for workers. The TUC plan launched today is rational, deliverable and very much needed.
 
“Usdaw’s policy and submission to this year’s Low Pay Commission consultation is for a minimum wage of £12 for all workers from next April, as a step towards £15. Before the cost of living crisis, Britain desperately needed a pay rise. Now, with inflation raging beyond 12% and set to go even higher, many workers are
reaching breaking point.
 
“Usdaw’s survey of members found that two-thirds have relied on borrowing to pay their everyday bills and around half of them are struggling with repayments. 82% of working parents feel worse off now than they did last year and more than a quarter of all parents have missed meals in the last year to pay bills. Two-thirds are significantly cutting down on heating. Shockingly, a quarter will no longer use the heating at all.
 
“These are the very real experiences of essential workers who were clapped during the pandemic and now seem to be forgotten. The Government has offered little more than sticking plasters that go nowhere near covering rising prices and bills, so there needs to be significant increases in minimum wage rates and fundamental reforms to end insecure work.
 
“We desperately need an emergency budget, not the current zombie Conservative Government who appear to be absent without leave. At the heart of the country’s response to the cost of living emergency should be the TUC plan for a £15 minimum wage, Keir Starmer’s plan for an energy price cap freeze to help protect against future price shocks, along with Labour’s pledges to end rip-off youth rates by paying the adult rate at 18 and requiring the Low Pay Commission to consider the cost of living when setting minimum wage rates.
 
“While Tory MPs fight among themselves, turning their backs on working people desperately struggling to make ends meet, the trade union and labour movement is coming up with the answers to tackle the cost of living emergency.”
 
Notes for editors:
 
Usdaw (Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers) is the UK's fifth biggest trade union with around 360,000 members. Most Usdaw members work in the retail sector, but the union also has many members in transport, distribution, food manufacturing, chemical industry and other trades.
 
For Usdaw press releases visit: http://www.usdaw.org.uk/news and you can follow us on Twitter @UsdawUnion