Too many people in Scotland are struggling on low wages, in insecure jobs where they don't even know if they will have paid work from one week to the next.
Some are even being paid less than the legal minimum wage. The UK Government recently named nearly 200 companies across the UK who had failed to pay workers the legal rate for the job. In Scotland, 23 employers made the shame list, owing a total of £44,565. The workers affected worked in a wide range of businesses, including hairdressers, restaurants, nurseries, care homes, hotels and construction firms.
Unite Scotland believes there are still too many rogue companies who try to prop up their profits by exploiting their workers. And there are too many Scottish workers who are being intimidated and scared into going along with it. We fear that this list of shame might be just the tip of the iceberg.
So how do we tackle the problem? Unite Scotland knows that the real answer is for workers to stand up for themselves – and that means joining a trade union. Just last week Unite was able to help thousands of workers at Sports Direct’s Shirebrook warehouse in Derbyshire receive back pay totalling an estimated £1 million for non-payment of the minimum wage.
TUC research shows the average hourly wage for non-unionised workers in the private sector is £12.64. For union members, it’s £13.67. Young workers in a union, from ages 16 -24, earn an average of £10.18 an hour, compared to £7.84 for those not in a union. The wages of women union members are on average 30 per cent higher than those of non-unionised women.
Higher wages also bring wider benefits. The UK is a "wage-led" economy, where growth in national income is driven by growing wages, more than by growing company profits. When wages fall, we all become poorer.
In a report last year, the New Economics Foundation highlighted the direct link between falling trade union membership and falling incomes. In the years after the Second World War until 1975, the share of national income going to workers grew year-on-year, peaking at 76 per cent in 1975. At the same time, union membership was also growing, reaching its peak in 1981.
We know what happened after that. The Thatcher governments attacked workers through unjust and unfair anti-trade union legislation that, shamefully, is still on the statute books. And as union membership fell, workers paid the price, with their share of income falling to just 67per cent in 2014. Meanwhile, fat cat pay is rocketing, with the average pay of FTSE 100 CEOs now an incredible 183 times that of the pay of average workers – up from 160 times in 2010.
The New Economics Foundation estimated that if union membership today was restored to the levels seen in the early 1980s, the UK's Gross Domestic Product would receive a massive boost of £27.2 billion, thanks to the impact on the wage share.
And these are more than numbers on a bit of paper – everyone who has worked in a low-wage job knows that just that bit extra a week can make the difference between keeping your head above water, or struggling in a cycle of debt.
But in a rich country like Scotland, we should be aiming for better than that. Government and business must go further, and work with trade unions to halt the spiralling exploitation of workers in certain parts of the economy. We need industry-wide minimum standards to bolster wages – and especially the national minimum wage. As part of that, we believe employment law and minimum wage policy should be devolved and set in Scotland, so we can adopt stronger policies to support workers.
Unite Scotland has a clear message to workers faced with low-wages and insecure jobs - don't just sit back and take it. When you join a trade union, you join a movement of millions of people, and together we can help protect your jobs, your wages and your basic rights, and bring dignity and fairness to your workplace.
Pat Rafferty is Scottish Secretary of the Unite union.
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