Taking the rise?

As the national minimum wage underwent its paltry annual hike on Wednesday (October 1), from £6.31 to £6.50 an hour, the government is busy crowing about the supposed “above-inflation increase.”

But the raised national minimum wage (NMW) doesn’t take into account the astronomical increase in living costs.

The Mirror reported today (October 2) just how absurdly low the statutory minimum wage is, especially when compared with the outrageous average pay of chief executives.

To put the minimum wage into perspective, a worker on this wage, working 37.5 hours a week with zero pay for bank holidays, would have to toil for a full 342 years to earn as much as an average chief executive makes in just one year –  £4,230,000.

In the 15 years since a statutory minimum was first implemented, the NMW has gone up 81 per cent. What may seem like a healthy increase over the years, pales in comparison to the raises those at the top have given themselves.

In the same time period, average chief executive pay has increased by a whopping 243 per cent. If the minimum were to keep up with chief executive pay, the NMW would now amount to over £12 an hour – double what it is now.

Averages belie the worst offenders in the disparity between low and top earners within a given company. As UniteLive reported last month, the richest fat cat executives have absolutely no shame.

Some of these include CEO of WPP Martin Sorrell, who earns 780 times what his average employee takes home; Next CEO Lord Simon Wolfson, who earns 459 times more; and Compass CEO Richard Cousins, who earns 418 times more.

Many may believe that minimum wage workers are mostly in notoriously low-paying industries like hospitality and retail. But the slave wages don’t stop there. Local government workers – public servants who toil endlessly to keep the country’s vital services running smoothly—are earning poverty pay, too. When the NWM lifted yesterday, thousands of these local authority workers found themselves being paid the very minimum.

Unite national officer for local government Fiona Farmer called these workers pay rates a “disgrace.”

“Our members are facing a winter of poverty, choosing between heating and eating,” Farmer said.

“Care workers, cleaners, catering and school support staff providing vital services to children, the elderly and vulnerable will be desperately trying to make ends meet.

“The majority of the workforce – 77 per cent – is made up of women, many working part-time, who are bearing the brunt of the austerity measures,” she added, “while George Osborne’s chums amongst the wealthy elite live it up because of generous tax breaks.”

Unite has called for an immediate ÂŁ1.50 hike in the minimum wage, which would lift millions out of poverty. The union has also joined other unions representing council workers in demanding a ÂŁ1-an-hour pay rise.

Click here for more information on the upcoming local government strike action on October 14.