Wanted: A Living Wage For Young Workers

THE SUNDAY Times Rich List tried to make us drool last
weekend over the colossal fortunes amassed by Britain’s wealthiest people,
like Roman Abramovich, the multi-billionaire who bought Chelsea football club
with spare change out of his £7.5 billion fortune.

Sarah Sachs-Eldridge, ISR London

Abramovitch is now the richest person in Britain. He
started amassing his riches by buying into a Siberian oil company created from
previous state assets. Through mergers, it became the world’s fourth biggest
oil firm and brought him billions.

Britain’s richest 1,000 people are now ‘worth’ £202
billion – more than 30% wealthier than last year. If there was an annual Low
Pay List, how many workers would have had 30% pay rises in the past 12 months?

Take young workers of 16 and 17 years old, who are
permanently at the foot of the pay league. Half of all 16-17 year olds are in
work today, three-quarters keeping down jobs on top of full-time education.
Under-18s are not at present eligible for a national minimum wage, so many
employers only pay them poverty wages.

Now years of campaigning have forced the government to
bring in a minimum wage for 16-17 year-olds from next October. Unfortunately
New Labour have set the rate at a stingy £3 an hour.

Last year Greater Manchester Low Pay Unit (GMLPU) said
that "the minimum wage has had a positive impact, particularly on low-paying
sectors. However, many of the jobs still offered a low weekly income and would
only provide a decent living income for a family if it was topped up with
benefits and tax credits."

That’s even more true for young workers. A GMLPU survey a
few years ago showed that over a quarter of all jobs for 16-year-olds, over a
fifth of those for 17-year-olds and a tenth of all 18-year-olds’ jobs were
paying less than £1.75 an hour.

Although £3 an hour is a small step forward, it still
keeps young workers in the poverty pay league. The Rich List shows that
there’s no shortage of money.

International Socialist Resistance (ISR) aims to build
support for our campaign by getting 5,000 signatures to hand into the
government with copies to the Trades Union Congress (TUC) to put pressure on
them to campaign for the introduction of a living wage for all workers.