STURGEON CUTS OFF CASH
FM: Stop slave wages or lose handouts
Amazon have been told they won’t get any moree Scottish Government grant cashash under new living wage rules. es.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has ordered her jobs creationn quango to ban firms who pay slave rates to staff.
It means the internet shoppinghopping giant – who have been handedd £ 3.5million in 10 years – will have to increase pay to £8.75 an hour to access statetate support.
Nicola Sturgeon has pulled the plug on multi- million pound grants for Amazon until they pay Scottish workers the Living Wage.
The Sunday Mail can reveal the First Minister has introduced new criteria for state handouts that will exclude low-wage employers. She appears to have lost patience with Amazon – owned by the world’s richest man Jeff Bezo s–after he consistently refused to pay workers the £8.75 an hour rate recommended by the Living Wage Foundation to guarantee basic living standards for staff.
Scottish Government ministers have met with senior managers on a number of occasions, but failed to convince them to adopt the standard at plants in Dunfermline, Fife, and Gourock, Inverclyde.
Meanwhile, American Bezos – worth £125billion – has raked in at least £ 3.5million of taxpayer funded Regional Selective Assistance (RSA) grants since 2007.
Scottish Enterprise have confirmed new rules governing jobs grants are being put into force from April that will exclude Amazon and others from applying if they fail to pay the living wage and adopt other “Fair Work” practices such as outlawing zero-hours contracts.
It follows a pledge buried in Nicola Sturgeon’s Programme for Government earlier this month that aims to make Scotland a world-leading “Fair Work nation”.
It stated: “We will introduce fair work criteria, including paying the Living Wage, excluding exploitative zero-hours contracts and being transparent on gender-equal pay to business support grants throuthrough RSA and other large Scottish EnteEnterprise job-related grants, starting with grants offered in 2019-20.”
Scottish EnterpriseE said: “We can confirm that from next financial year we will be introducingint new criteria for our job creationcreati grants as set out in the Programme forf Government.”
A spokesmspokesman for business minister Jamie HepburnHepbur said: “Scotland punches well above itsit weight in terms of the proportion of people paid at least the living wage, including the highest proportion of people in the UK. “AAs outlined in our recent ProProgramme for Government, we will publish a Fair Work Action Plan by the end of 2018 that will set out the next steps we will take to embed Fair Work practices in Scottish workplaces by 2025.
“This will include the introduction of Fair Work criteria in order to be eligible for RSA.”
Campaigners have welcomed Sturgeon’s pledge to crack down on low-paying employers but challenged her to make sure it is implemented.
Scottish Labour have spoken out consistently on Amazon, and raised the issue of previous RSA grants being issued despite the company failing to comply with the Scottish Government’s Fair
We will be introducing new criteria for our job creation grants RICH Bezos