{"id":1709,"date":"2014-10-02T16:50:35","date_gmt":"2014-10-02T15:50:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=1709"},"modified":"2014-10-07T14:12:57","modified_gmt":"2014-10-07T13:12:57","slug":"taking-rise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=1709","title":{"rendered":"Taking the rise?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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As the national minimum wage underwent its paltry annual hike on Wednesday (October 1), from \u00c2\u01416.31 to \u00c2\u01416.50 an hour, the government is busy crowing about the supposed \u00e2\u20ac\u015babove-inflation increase.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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But the raised national minimum wage (NMW) doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t take into account the astronomical increase in living costs.<\/p>\n

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

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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 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c\u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u01414,230,000.<\/p>\n

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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.<\/p>\n

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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 \u00c2\u014112 an hour \u00e2\u20ac\u201c double what it is now.<\/p>\n

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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.<\/p>\n

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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.<\/p>\n

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Many may believe that minimum wage workers are mostly in notoriously low-paying industries like hospitality and retail. But the slave wages don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t stop there. Local government workers \u00e2\u20ac\u201c public servants who toil endlessly to keep the country\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s vital services running smoothly\u00e2\u20ac\u201dare earning poverty pay, too. When the NWM lifted yesterday, thousands of these local authority workers found themselves being paid the very minimum.<\/p>\n

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Unite national officer for local government Fiona Farmer called these workers pay rates a \u00e2\u20ac\u015bdisgrace.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bOur members are facing a winter of poverty, choosing between heating and eating,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Farmer said.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bCare workers, cleaners, catering and school support staff providing vital services to children, the elderly and vulnerable will be desperately trying to make ends meet.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe majority of the workforce \u00e2\u20ac\u201c 77 per cent \u00e2\u20ac\u201c is made up of women, many working part-time, who are bearing the brunt of the austerity measures,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 she added, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bwhile George Osborne\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s chums amongst the wealthy elite live it up because of generous tax breaks.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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Unite has called for an immediate \u00c2\u01411.50 hike in the minimum wage<\/a>, which would lift millions out of poverty. The union has also joined other unions representing council workers in demanding a \u00c2\u01411-an-hour pay rise<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Click here for more information<\/a> on the upcoming local government strike action on October 14.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the national minimum wage underwent its paltry annual hike on Wednesday (October 1), from \u00c2\u01416.31 to \u00c2\u01416.50 an hour, the government is busy crowing about the supposed \u00e2\u20ac\u015babove-inflation increase.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165   But the raised national minimum wage (NMW) doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t take into account the astronomical increase in living costs.   The Mirror reported today (October 2) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1710,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[23,124],"wps_subtitle":"Think the minimum wage rise is fair? Think again","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1709"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1709"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1709\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1712,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1709\/revisions\/1712"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}