Low pay is endemic,especially among young workers, photo Petteri Sulonen/CC

Low pay is endemic,especially among young workers, photo Petteri Sulonen/CC   (Click to enlarge: opens in new window)

‘We’re all in it together’ chirped Boris Johnson at the start of lockdown – which is presumably why he’s considering not uprating the paltry minimum wage next April, because the bosses say they can’t afford it!

This hypocrite cannot be allowed to go unchallenged. As furlough payments come to an end, employers are already slashing wages, axing jobs and cutting hours to protect their profits.

The trade unions must step up to the plate and fight for a real minimum wage. That means demanding £12 an hour and £15 an hour in high-cost London now, and organising action to achieve it.

Workers slam Tory proposal

“At the height of the pandemic crisis the Tories praised low-paid workers for keeping the country going. Yet the Tories now tell us the minimum wage won’t be uprated this April. They aren’t prepared to give us a wage to survive on. Instead they want workers to pay for the crisis not the bosses.”

Michelle Francis, low paid worker, Southampton

“Ministers are considering slamming the ’emergency brake’ on uprating the minimum wage.

Overworked and underpaid, it’s us who have been on the front line since before the pandemic. Now we’re told we must accept a further decay in our conditions.

As a low-paid warehouse worker, I’ve seen co-workers fall ill, and one die… with lip service paid to health and safety, hazard pay removed early… There are no excuses, other than greed for these attacks on the working class to continue.”

Low-paid worker, Nuneaton