GFTU BGCM Minutes 2017

MOTION 7 – ATTACKS ON PAY

SIS SARAH WOOLLEY (Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union) moved the

following motion:

1

That this conference agrees to lobby government, the Labour Party and

TUC to stop the abuse of workers’ pay, terms and conditions to compensate for

the implementation of the so called living wage. Cuts to overtime, Bank holiday

and premium payments are becoming the norm and driving many thousands of

workers to the brink of poverty.

She said: Conference, £7.50 is not a living wage. Imagine having to rely on

premium shifts, working consistent Sundays, nights and bank holidays to earn

enough money in order to survive, working ridiculous amounts of overtime in

order to pay the bills and be able to eat. This is the reality for many thousands

of workers in our industry who are predominantly low paid. Since the

introduction of the £7.50 rate we have seen an increase in unscrupulous

employers attempting to slash these premium shifts as well as other terms and

conditions in order to “fund” the increase in the minimum wage, whilst not

touching their profit levels of the bosses’ pay. Employers such as Two Sisters

who make tens of millions of pounds of profit expect their workforce to forfeit

premium shifts to pay for it and live off a minimum pay rate and are actually

losing money due to the loss of extra earning opportunities. Incidentally, our

strike last year at Pennine Foods in Sheffield was a direct fightback of these

cuts or attempted cuts which would have seen couples, for example, losing

between £5,000 and £8,000 a year. It is the difference between keeping and

losing your house. They have been allowed to abuse loopholes in the law,

making employees poorer whilst they get richer and this is from a Government

who says it is for the working people. Conference, that is about as phoney as

the living wage they introduced. There are no protections in place for the

workers who have been left wide open to these attacks.

We want to ensure when the Labour Party are elected on 9 th June and £10 an

hour minimum wage is brought in that this will be a basic rate to build upon and

not be another excuse for the likes of Two Sisters to strip back any more pay,

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