Low Pay

EDM number 973 in 1993-94, proposed by Gerry Steinberg on 29/03/1994.

That this House condemns the appalling pay suffered by Mr Neil Kennedy, Mr Simon Grievson and Mr Stephen Smith at Metro Mail in Peterlee, County Durham; notes that the ú30.38, ú42 and ú28 received by these employees in payment for a 39 hour week, as a result of the absence of an hourly wage, is reminiscent of the cheap labour and exploitation which was described by Winston Churchill in 1909 as a 'serious national evil' and which stirred him to set up the trades boards, the origins of the wages councils, to ensure that all workers received a living wage; believes that this Government's abolition of wages councils in 1992 demonstrates its contempt for the spirit of progressive government under which such legislation was first introduced, and renders low paid workers easy prey to bad employers; and calls upon the Government to restore the wages councils as a matter of urgency.

This motion has been signed by a total of 88 MPs.