Strengthening the National Minimum Wage
August 1st, 2008 | by martin.rhodes |Glasgow North MP, Ann McKechin, has welcomed the announcement on fair tips and the minimum wage and has called for rogue employers who con staff to be exposed.
July marked 10 years since Labour MPs voted to introduce the National Minimum Wage in 1998. When the National Minimum Wage was introduced ten years ago, SNP MPs pointedly failed to support it, ignoring crucial votes in Parliament – and the Tories strongly opposed it, claiming then that the minimum wage would ‘cost the country 2 million jobs’. The reality is totally different. An extra 2.3 million jobs have been created since then. Nearly one million low paid employees, two thirds of them women, have benefited from the National Minimum Wage.
Ann McKechin MP commented: ” I think the minimum wage is one of the proudest achievements of the Labour Government.The next step is this new announcement that the Government intends to change the current minimum wage rules on tipping, to ensure that in the future tips will be additional to the minimum wage. Dealing with this is a matter of fairness and common sense. When we go to a restaurant or to have our hair cut and we leave a tip, we expect it to go to the staff member in addition to their pay, not to be arrested by the employer to subsidise their legal duty to pay the National Minimum Wage.”
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