USDAW is the fifth-largest trade union in the UK. Many Usdaw members work in retail, but the union also has a significant membership across a range of other industries including transport, warehousing, distribution and food manufacturing. 

Usdaw has long been committed to tackling low pay. The union was a major driving force behind the campaign for the national minimum wage, introduced 21 years ago this month. 

The union continues today to lobby the Low Pay Commission for significant increases to minimum wage rates each year and only last week Usdaw members were giving evidence to the Low Pay Commission during an LPC visit to Ayr. 

Twenty-one years after the introduction of the national minimum wage, there is still an endemic low pay problem. 

Workers are having to rely on inadequate state benefits and unsecured borrowing to make ends meet, because their wages do not cover their basic outgoings. 

This week at the Scottish TUC’s annual conference being held in Dundee, Usdaw has won STUC support for Usdaw’s Time for Better Pay campaign.

Last summer, Usdaw surveyed 10,500 low-paid workers about low pay, insecure work and short-hours contracts. 

We received a staggering response and many told us of their experiences. 

The results of the Usdaw survey provide us with hard clear evidence of the day-to-day struggle of low-paid workers. 

The survey found working people are struggling to meet the basic costs of living, and the vast majority feel they are worse off than five years ago. 

The cost of living is rising sharply but wages are stagnating for the lowest-paid. 

As inflation continues to outstrip average earnings, low-paid workers and their families are finding it hard to make ends meet. 

From the results of the survey, we learnt that half of workers have missed meals to pay essential bills, with a third missing meals on a regular basis and one in 10 using foodbanks to feed their families. 

Amid the mental health crisis that is blighting Britain at the moment, as a result of unprecedented levels of cuts to public services and damaging government austerity measures, two-thirds of these low-paid workers say that financial worries are having an impact on their mental health. 

In-work poverty is a huge problem in the economy in 2019. According to Child Poverty Action Group, 61 per cent of children living in poverty in Scotland come from a family where at least one adult is in work. 

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation estimates that one in eight workers across the UK is classed as in “in-work poverty.” 

The Usdaw survey is one of the biggest-ever surveys of low-paid workers in recent times. The results are stark and only serve to highlight the crisis of people experiencing “in-work poverty.” 

In response, Usdaw launched the Time for Better Pay campaign, calling for the government and devolved administrations to address and rectify the issues faced by low-paid workers. 

The Time for Better Pay campaign is calling for four key actions:

• A minimum wage of £10 per hour for all workers,
• A minimum contract of 16 hours per week for everyone who wants it, 
• A contract based on an individual’s normal hours of work,
• A ban on zero-hours contracts.

Usdaw believes the Westminster government should legislate for a minimum wage rate of £10 per hour for all workers, instead of the so-called national “living wage” which currently sits at just £8.21 per hour and excludes those aged under 25. 

The union is also calling for statutory minimum contracts of 16 hours per week (for those who want it), a contract based on an individual’s normal hours of work and an end to zero-hours contracts. 

Usdaw continues to negotiate and organise in the workplace for improvements to members’ terms and conditions and has raised the four demands with many employers. 

But we also need stronger government action to tackle in-work poverty and deliver a better deal for all low-paid workers.

The union has launched a parliamentary petition to lobby the government for the four demands. This petition (mstar.link/UsdawPetition) has been signed by nearly 30,000 people. 

Usdaw is urging all STUC delegates to sign the petition and encourage others to sign it. 

Government must take action to protect working people from in-work poverty. Delivering on the four demands of the Time for Better Pay campaign would be a start.

Stewart Forrest is Usdaw Glasgow divisional officer.