The Fairness Pledge

09.04.10 - Helen Symons

Approaching 60% of British children who fall below the poverty line live in households where at least one adult is in work. Children growing up in poor households are more likely to have poor health, to perform badly at school, to become teenage parents, and to come into early contact with the police. This costs us all in many ways. Shamefully, we also have the largest gender pay gap in the EU, and two thirds of low paid workers are women, meaning poverty in the UK has a female face.

Thousands of British people are known not to be receiving even the minimum wage of £5.80. And yet poverty experts report that a single adult, working full time, needs to earn at least £6.88 an hour to reach the most basic weekly standard of living; and much more in cities like London.

In 2010, this is a shameful state of affairs. Those who did the least to cause the current recession are suffering the most. We the undersigned, working for social justice and collectively representing millions of British people, call upon all prospective parliamentary candidates in the 2010 general election to pledge to act in support of those receiving poverty pay in their constituency by endorsing the five urgent asks:

Barbara Stocking CBE (Oxfam), Neil Jameson (London Citizens), Brendan Barber (TUC), Shan Nicholas (Child Poverty Action Group), Wes Streeting (NUS), Billy Hayes (CWU), Stephen Burke (Counsel and Care), Dave Prentis (UNISON), Sally Hunt (UCU), Dr Katherine Rake (The Fawcett Society), Derek Simpson/Tony Woodley (Unite the Union), Bob Crow (RMT), Peter Kenway (New Policy Institute), Paul Kenny (GMB), Fiona Weir (Gingerbread: One Parent Families), Don Flynn (Migrants Rights Network), Mark Serwotka (PCS), Eileen Devaney (UK Coalition against Poverty)

 

THE CANDIDATE’S PLEDGE: FAST FORWARD TO FAIRNESS:

1. Safeguard the poorest: I commit to support an annual increase of the National Minimum Wage in real terms; to encourage the independence of the Low Pay Commission and to support a meaningful increase in resources for NMW enforcement

2. Spend our money ethically: I commit to actively encourage and support my local authority in the introduction of “living wage clauses” in every single public procurement contract that it awards to private contractors.

3. Learn from the best: I pledge to follow the example of employers like London Olympics 2012, Barclays and KPMG and generate employer interest in and support initiatives to introduce living wage policies in the public, private and third sectors as soon as possible.

4. End discrimination: I commit to actively encourage the government to strengthen laws relating to pay discrimination on the grounds of gender, race and disability by requiring all organisations to publish pay audits showing pay rates for men and women, including ethnicity and disability, at all levels

5. Public Sector in the Vanguard: I commit to parliamentary activity to root out low pay in the public sector in which almost a quarter of all low-paid jobs reside.

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