Labour Will Strengthen the Minimum Wage to Help Those on Low Pay Cope with the Cost of Living Crisis
I have serious problems with this – not least because of this senior Labour MP’s use of the Tory ‘hardworking’ tag.
KPMG, for example, is one of the ‘Big Four’ accountancy firms that have been rewriting tax law to favour people with, let’s say, offshore banking interests; business executives, shareholders, profiteers. They’re hardly likely to do anything that will improve the position of the people who create those profits because that will mean a smaller slice of cake for the fatcats.
Labour needs to get rid of these private sector hangers-on; their advice is worse than useless.
Yes yes yes,but not everyone can work and HAVE to stay home to look after relatives…for what amounts to about 20p an hour. ….how about us?…or is this yet another “pledge” and not a copper bottomed guarantee? All these political parties are from the same batch and it’s pretty rotten.
It could be argued that the existence of a legal minimum wage is the businessman’s best friend. It gives the more miserly employers something to hang their hat on “why are you complaining? We pay you a wage which the law dictates”. It also disincentivises the employee from fighting for a better wage while, at the same time, undermining collective bargaining.
The complete answer to the first question is: “No. You pay the absolute minimum permitted by the law; this is not equitable for the kind of work being done.”
That’s your starting-point.
Having a strong trade union would help, too.
If Labour were going to increase the minimum wage surely they would say so. So why say “strengthen” rather than “increase”? What does “strengthen the minimum wage” actually mean?