More than 200 companies have been found to be underpaying workers below the legal minimum. The Tories are under such pressure after millions of workers have received real-terms pay cuts for years. It’s the government itself that has ‘named and shamed’ these dodgy companies this time.
The figures show 63,000 workers have been underpaid by £5 million. This figure is likely to be a massive underestimation of the amount of wage theft that happens.
The total potential fines for this shocking wage theft? Just £7 million in total.
The most guilty underpaying culprit, WHSmith, alone made £63 million profit. Subsidiary companies of supermarket chain Sainbury’s are also on the list. Sainsbury’s made record after-tax profit of £677 million in 2021-22.
We can’t trust the bosses or the Tories. The strike wave has shown that the working class has to get organised to win real pay rises.
And these giant profiteering underpaying companies should be nationalised, under the democratic control of the working class, so we can run them properly.
