I know I come across as very cynical, but having done a lot of research into employment laws, I think it is justified here. Right wing think tanks are very good at hiding their motives and in many cases their funding. Think tanks know that lobbying has a bad press, so they try to present themselves as research groups rather than lobbyists. They’ll try to make it look like they’re going in with an open mind and genuinely trying to add to the debate. They’ll always try to make it look like they’ve got poor people’s interests at heart.
They’ll often claim they want more legislation, but the legislation they’ll campaign for will be meaningless, while they’ll simultaneously lobby against other more meaningful legislation. The Modern Slavery bill was heavily criticised by human rights groups like Amnesty International. The government abolished the department for investigating slavery (under the guise of austerity) while passing a law saying that large companies have to put a statement on their website saying they’re against slavery. A joint investigation between a lot of the big UK media outlets found there were 10,000 modern slaves in textile mills in Leicester alone. No one was ever prosecuted for it. There are probably at least 200,000 slaves in the UK. When 21 Chinese slaves died picking cockles in Morecambe Bay, one person was given a short prison sentence. The slave owner had been making slaves pick Cockles in the bay for over a decade when the incident happened. The police had repeatedly declined to investigate.
The government introduced and law saying large companies should report their gender pay gap, but there are no penalties for not doing it or reporting inaccurate information. At the same time, they declined to pass more meaningful laws, like saying you can’t ask for previous salaries in recruitment, or that you have to tell people the pay before a job interview.
It’s believed that there are around 8 million people in the UK earning below the minimum wage. This includes modern slavery (often working in things like car washes, nail salons, sex work, the drug trade, sweatshops, construction, farming, fishing and cockle picking), the hidden economy (people working for companies that aren’t registered with HMRC/Companies House who are paid cash in hand, often prevalent in farming and construction), people in the gig economy who’ve been wrongly told they’re self employed when they’re not (self employed people aren’t entitled to a minimum wage), and people in ‘regular’ employment who are paid below the minimum wage. There are about 30 ways a ‘regular’ employer could pay someone below the minimum wage.
They might enroll someone onto a bogus apprenticeship that doesn’t meet the definition of an apprenticeship. There is a lower minimum wage for apprentices, but there are a lot of apprenticeships in things like coffee making and leadership that don’t meet the definition of an apprenticeship. They might not reimburse people fully for their costs. For example, a care worker’s mileage allowance might not cover the full cost of driving to clients. The government’s recommended mileage allowance for people driving for work hasn’t increased in over a decade. They might have to pay for their own equipment, for example being told to use their personal mobile for work purposes. Or workers might have pay deducted for unreasonable things, like a compulsory service charge that covers the cost of running a canteen, or an administration fee for getting paid. There might be other unlawful deductions of pay, for example if a cash register is short, everyone on that shift might have pay illegally deducted. The company might make assumptions about how much workers are earning in tips and deduct it from their wages. People might not be paid statutory holiday pay or statutory sick pay. Staff might be told they have to clock in before they start getting paid, or stop getting paid before they stop working. For example, they might stop getting paid when the restaurant closes, but have to do cleaning after its closed. They might not get paid for training, for example they’ll be given lot of E training to do at home when they’re off the clock.
Low paid workers (including those in hospitality) are very vulnerable. They’re rarely covered by unions. Zero hour contracts give employers the power to cut hours or fire people without giving a reason or going through any process. Employment tribunals are very hard to access and if a low paid worker does make it to a tribunal (which is incredibly rare) their odds of winning are estimated to be less than one in a thousand.
Some people with think I’m over cynical or a conspiracy theorist. But I have done a lot of research into employment laws and the way they’ve been eroded. I don’t believe for a minute that a rightwing think tank is spreading misinformation to help the teachers and nurses out. I believe they’re spreading misinformation to set up the idea that low paid workers are being looked after, and to sow political divisions. We’re one of only a few developed countries that haven’t banned zero hour contracts, and the fact that there’s an estimated 8 million people earning below the minimum wage is truly shameful. It’s a reflection not just of the government, but of the opposition, the media, the power of the lobbyists, and the universities and charities that have often legitimized the lobbyists messages whilst trousering a load of money along the way. In fact, the whole sorry mess reflects very poorly on British society. The UK is consistently rated as having about the weakest employment laws of any advanced economy, and the lowest paid, least unionised workers, are often the biggest losers.
Right wing think tanks might be very good at hiding their motives, but the people who fund them know exactly what they’re getting.
