UNISON national young members’ officer Gary Williams blogs on the union’s call for an end to age discrimination in the minimum wage rates
Imagine you are 40 years old (give it a try) and in your job you get £7 an hour. You find out that a friend of yours who is doing the same job as you, works alongside you, for the same employer – is earning 35% more than you: £9.45 per hour.
How would you feel?
You go to your manager about this and say it:s unfair. He says, “No, it’s because she is 42 years old and the employer has to pay her more. When you turn 42, you’ll get that rate, too.”
Next day you find out that another colleague – again, doing exactly the same work as you in the same workplace – is on £12.04 per hour. That’s a whopping 72% more than you.
You go back to your manager and say there really must be something wrong – after all, you are both doing exactly the same work. He says: “No. She’s 45 years old, and the law says that’s allowed. In fact it says that’s the minimum we can pay her.
“But don’t worry, in five years when you turn 45, you’ll be on that rate, too.”
Sounds just plain nonsensical, doesn’t it? Completely unbelievable.
And yet … change the ages to 16, 18, and 21 and the pay rates to £3.79, £5.13, and £6.50 (the percentage differences of 35% and 72% are the same) and this is exactly the situation young workers can find themselves in. By law.
If it doesn’t make sense for older workers, why does it make sense for younger workers?
That is why USION has written to the Low Pay Commission as it gathers submissions for the annual review of the national minimum wage, setting out a programme to end this age discrimination.
We call for:
- the apprentice rate of the minimum wage to be set at the same level as the youth rate;
- advanced, higher level and older apprentices (18 and up) to be paid the adult rate;
- the “development rate” for 18-20 year olds in line with the full adult minimum wage from 2015;
- 16-17 year olds to be given “development rate” with a view to harmonising it with the adult rate within three years.
But the real deal is the living wage.
No age discriminatory rates, and no poverty pay – it’s only fair.