News

Minimum wage underpayments are an occurance in the care sector worldwide. A new United Kingdom report reveals that at least 160,000 care workers, mostly women, are being collectively cheated out of £130m a year by virtue of being paid below the National Minimum Wage.

Highlighted on the TUC's touchstone blog, the key findings of the report are:

• Social care workers are losing out on an estimated £130 million a year due to pay rates that are in breach of the National Minimum Wage.
• Around 160,000 care workers (out of 1.4 million) are being paid less than the minimum wage when all working time is considered. The average loss for those not receiving the minimum wage is around £815 per year.
• The minimum wage underpayment is primarily down to the failure of employers to pay staff at a level that adequately covers all of their working time. This includes time spent travelling between clients for domiciliary care workers, many of whom will have to make a number of journeys between clients each day. It’s also due to unpaid training time and ‘on call’ time.

As author Laura Gardiner says:

'There is increasing recognition that a better deal for the workforce will be essential to the quality and sustainability of social care provision in the UK, but so far there has been scant evidence as to the scale of investment needed. The Resolution Foundation is currently undertaking a major investigation into the costs of improving care worker conditions – via things like paying the living wage and enhancing pension contributions – and the wider savings that would result, for example through lower tax credit spending as wages rise.

But before we consider the costs and benefits of improvements like these, it is essential to ensure that pay levels at least comply with the law. The National Minimum Wage is a right, not a privilege, but previous research has shown that a significant minority of frontline care workers are not receiving it. This note describes how we have developed this previous research by estimating the quantum of wages missing from frontline workers’ pockets each year due to minimum wage non-compliance on the part of care providers.'

Globally, care workers are organising to change the situation, and putting pressure on employers and governments to take action to ensure minimums are being met. In New Zealand a successful legal case taken by a care worker and her union, the Service and Food Workers' Union, has resulted in a landmark ruling to mandate at least minimum wage payments to care sector workers.

However minimums are just the beginning. Care workers around the world are organising and uniting for decent pay, decent jobs, and respect for their work. This groundswell will continue until care work is valued and workers doing difficult and demanding care work are paid enough to live on, and enough to participate in society - a life beyond working and paying the bills.