Workers need more rights – decent lives at and out of work. Work, most
politicians will tell us, is the route out of poverty. Yet 70% of children in poverty live in a
household where someone is in paid work1.
Workers need more rights to make work pay; both individually and collectively.
The Minimum Wage is too low – and has a lower rate for under 21’s; it needs to be a real
Living Wage (£12 at least). Collective bargaining is the best way to improve wages and other terms and conditions. In the UK less than 25% of workers are covered by a
collective agreement.2
COVID has shown how inadequate sick pay is. Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) doesn’t cover
the first three days of illness; very low paid are excluded because they do not earn enough to
qualify; and the shockingly low level of payment. Over one million workers currently get no
SSP at all as a result of not meeting the lower earnings limit which currently stands at £123
a week. 7 in 10 (69%) of those employees missing out on SSP due to the lower earnings
limit are women.
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Stirling UNISON 