7.5 pct hike on minimum wage

‘In’ & ‘out’ level

LONDON, April 1, (Agencies): Britain’s Conservative government raised the minimum wage by 7.5 percent on Friday in a move denounced by critics as largely symbolic in an era of state austerity.

Around 1.8 million employees will benefit from the National Living Wage (NLW).

Workers aged 25 and over will now earn a minimum hourly gross wage of £7.20 ($10.36, 9.10 euros) compared with £6.70 previously.

“The National Living Wage will play a central role in moving Britain to a higher wage, lower tax, lower welfare economy,” said British finance minister George Osborne.

“It will also mark the end of the gender pay gap for some of our lowest paid and hardest working people.” The new increased amount compares with an 8.50 euro minimum wage rate in Germany and almost 9.70 euros in France.

Osborne

Unemployment

In Britain, where unemployment is relatively low at around 5.0 percent, large wage inequalities persist and London School of Economics professor Alan Manning described the NLW as “more symbolic” than anything else.

“It’s significant but I don’t think one should exaggerate its significance,” he told AFP.

The rise in the NLW represents just 0.1 percent of the country’s wage bill, while workers under the age of 18 will still earn below £4.00 an hour as a minimum wage.

The hourly rate of £7.20 is below the amount recommended by the lobby group Living Wage Foundation, which claims that workers aged 18 and over should earn at least £8.25 a hour, rising to £9.40 in London where housing rents tend to be far higher compared with the rest of the country.

“Today’s new legal minimum is an important step forward in tackling low pay in the UK,” said Katherine Chapman, director of the Living Wage Foundation.

“We welcome the news that millions of workers will get a pay rise. However, the job is not done when it comes to tackling low pay,” she said.

“Around six million people earn below the voluntary Living Wage in the UK, with women, young people and part-time workers most affected by low pay.”

Workers’ representatives meanwhile stress that the introduction of the NLW should be seen alongside cuts to welfare payments.

Tim Nichols, senior media officer at the Trades Union Congress — Britain’s biggest union organisation — said “many people on the lowest pay are also reliant on in-work benefits, such as tax credits or housing benefit, to ensure a sufficient minimum household income”.

Nevertheless, the NLW is a notable turnaround for the Conservative Party of Prime Minister David Cameron after it opposed the introduction of the minimum wage in 1999 when Tony Blair’s Labour was in power.

“When they opposed it, they thought the national minimum wage would destroy lot of jobs,” said Manning.

LONDON:

Also:

The rival campaigns for Britain to stay in or leave the European Union are tied, an online poll by TNS showed on Friday, less than three months before the country’s historic referendum.

The ‘in’ and ‘out’ camps both had support from 35 percent of respondents in the poll with 30 percent still undecided.

Support for both sides fell by 1 percentage point compared with a previous survey in March.

TNS also showed that people were becoming less sure about the likely outcome of the June 23 referendum with fewer people - 33 percent compared with 41 percent - now saying they expected Britain to remain in the bloc.

CANTERBURY, England:

A judge refused on Friday to halt the criminal damage trial of a refugee from Darfur who walked through the Channel Tunnel in one of the most dramatic attempts to reach Britain since Europe’s migration crisis began.

Abdul Haroun’s case has prompted debate in Britain between critics who want him prosecuted to deter others from attempting the 50km walk through the railway tunnel from France, and supporters who say he should be free to start a new life.

His trial had been set for June and Judge Adele Williams ruled at Canterbury Crown Court in southeast England that it should go ahead.