THE UK Government’s national living wage is undermining employers who have signed up to pay the voluntary Living Wage Foundation’s higher rate, it has been claimed.
“The government’s living wage is just a whitewash – we should refuse to call it that as it is a minimum wage not a living wage and belittles people who are paying the real living wage,” said Paisley businessman Will Mylet who runs West of Scotland Removals.
He added: “It undermines what we are doing and employers who are trying to do the right thing.
It’s just a little tactic to gain some more votes for the Tories. At times it is a struggle because you do have quiet times so for the Government to call a minimum wage a living wage really undermines what we are doing.”
Although Mylet’s business is not big, he says he has still managed to pay the real living wage and believes there is “no excuse” for employers who refuse to pay it.
“It is a small business but you just have to budget,” he said. “I always make sure the money is there to pay the wages – you just need to be aware of quiet times and put money aside so you don’t get caught out.
“From my point of view, there is no excuse for not paying the living wage; there is no reason you can’t do it. I am not declaring profits of millions of pounds yet I manage, but you get some big employers who only care about making another million and it is always at the expense of their staff.”
Mylet signed up for Scottish Living Wage Accreditation three years ago as West Scotland Removals, which has been on the go for eight years, was already paying almost the full amount.
“It made sense to sign up,”
he explained. “It is a good thing – it’s good for employees as they get a good wage and they are happy and it is good for potential customers too because they like to know the employees are looked after.
“They know they are more likely to do a good job if they are happy.
If you treat them well they are going to work hard for you.”
Mylet credits the living wage for the fact that he has not had to replace any staff since 2013.
“It’s good to have staff who are trained and we’ve had the same staff for so long that everybody knows what they are doing,” he added.
Moving house can be very stressful, Mylet points out, and it helps householders to relax if they can trust the removal firm to take care of their possessions.
“People do get stressed but we try to have a laugh and joke with them and try to make it a bit more relaxing,” he said.
“I think it works as we get a lot of business from word of mouth – we recently got a call from someone in Rothesay who was moving from one house to another on the island but instead of taking an island firm they said they wanted us because of our reputation.
“We’ve only had two negative reviews in all that time and funnily enough they got us more work as people said it would not be believable if we had no negative reviews at all.”
Since it was launched in April 2014, more than 800 organisations in Scotland have signed up to the scheme to become accredited as official living wage employers, giving their workers at least £8.45 per hour.
The UK Government’s national living wage is £7.50 per hour for those aged 25 and over, falling to as low as £4.05 for under-18s.
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