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Item 5 is a slight change of topic: we are back to our inquiry into work, wages and wellbeing in the Scottish labour market.
To give evidence, I welcome a face familiar to many of us: Karen Whitefield is campaigns officer at the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers.
We will run this session for about 45 minutes. I remind members to keep their questions short and to the point; answers should also be short and to the point. That will help us to get through the topics that we want to discuss in the time available.
I will ask about the fair work convention, which the Scottish Government has established. What would the union like to see as the outcome of that? What would you like to see in the framework? How do you see the convention’s role developing?
We welcome the establishment of the fair work convention by the Scottish Government. We would like to see good engagement with all trade unions and, in particular, the Scottish Government to recognise the difference between the trade unions that operate in the public sector and those of us who operate entirely in the private sector, because there are different challenges there. I recognise that the Scottish Government has invited a number of trade union representatives to sit on its panel. Many of them come from a public sector background. I ask that we, too, get an opportunity to make representations.
We would want the convention to say something about pay in its findings, but we want it to remember that rates of pay are not the only issue in tackling poverty, particularly in-work poverty. Members will have seen in the media that there has been lots of discussion about some retailers paying the living wage. We welcome their doing so, but if a person is on a short-term contract or has only a six-hour contract, whether their employer is paying them the living wage will not address whether they are working but living in poverty.
We want the convention to address some of those issues and to remember that it is not simply about pay, to look at wider terms and conditions, and to set an example on the importance of trade unions and the valuable role that they can play in the workplace to ensure that there are good industrial relations. Trade unions are not a threat and are not there to intimidate; they are there to work in a spirit of partnership.
You talked about pay. Do you have a sense, in very rough terms, of the percentage of employees across the retail sector who are paid more or less than the living wage?
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We know right now, for example, that 1.5 million people are being paid a higher rate of pay than the national minimum wage, which was increased in October, but will receive no benefit from the minimum wage being increased to the national living wage, which the Government will introduce next year. Those people are being paid more than the £7.20 rate right now, but they are not being paid what we would consider to be the living wage that the Living Wage Foundation has argued for.
Is that 1.5 million altogether or 1.5 million in the retail industry?
It is 1.5 million altogether.
Okay. Do you know how many are in the retail industry?
No.
Okay. Thanks.
There have been announcements recently from one discounter and a supermarket chain that they will start to pay the living wage. I had discussions recently with one of the other large supermarket chains, which said that it would quite happily introduce the living wage, but the effect would be that it would no longer pay breaks and bonuses to its staff, and the staff discounts that it gives for in-store purchases would be removed. What is better for your members? Is it better that they are paid the living wage or that they get those other perks? How do you balance those? It would be great to get everything, but what is your membership’s preference?
It will probably come as no surprise to you that I, as a trade unionist, would say that we want both and would argue for both, but we are realistic. A combination of both is needed. Fundamentally, we will always argue and campaign for greater basic rates of pay for our members. That is why we exist; it is what we do. It is one of the main reasons that we exist to support our members. However, if we are serious about tackling in-work poverty, it is not simply about the rate of pay; it is about terms and conditions, including those breaks. It is about paid holidays, sick pay when a person is ill or injured at work, and what help a person gets if they are the victim of a violent crime simply for doing their job.
On discounts for our members, you might be surprised to learn that we surveyed our members. USDAW regularly communicates with our members to ensure that we know what is important to them. The majority of them said that they would be very concerned if they were to lose the employer discount schemes that they benefit from, because those schemes make a difference to the staff, who value them and want to hold on to them. When I am out and about, I regularly see placards that say that some retailers that do not recognise trade unions are proud to be the first retailers to pay the living wage. How many staff do they have in those stores? What kind of contracts are those individuals on? Do they get a phone call in the morning to be told that they are needed on that day, but might not know whether they will be needed the next day? There are real difficulties for people in managing their family incomes and being able to live and survive.
I support rolling out the living wage to the retail sector, but I have heard from independent convenience store owners in my constituency that they cannot afford to pay the living wage because they are under pressure from the multiples, which are also moving into the convenience store market. What do we need to do in order to convince the independent sector that it is important that the living wage is paid?
Sometimes we forget that we have not always had even a national minimum wage in this country. USDAW was instrumental in arguing for the creation of the national minimum wage. Many members will remember that, when we were making those arguments, people said that a national minimum wage would be disastrous for the retail sector, that people could not afford to pay it, that there would be grave difficulties and that people would lose their jobs.
The reality is that, when the national minimum wage was introduced, doomsday did not happen. It is about being realistic. There is no doubt that things are highly competitive in retail today, but the suggestion that retailers could not afford to pay the national living wage is often a little bit pessimistic, given that the economy is showing signs of improvement and that we have had 29 months of consecutive month-on-month growth in retail sales across the United Kingdom.
You said that the economy has grown. Paying the living wage will increase the amount of money in people’s pockets, which will have a knock-on effect on spend in stores and supermarkets. Why do you think that message has not got through to the supermarket chains or to the convenience store sector?
Things in retail are changing, particularly in relation to convenience stores, and a lot of the large retailers, particularly the big four in food—the Tescos, the Morrisons and the Co-operatives of this world—are changing their focus. You have probably noticed that, across the country, very few new large stores are opening. The large retailers are moving into the convenience sector market and that is about competition. Those larger companies have the advantages of economy of scale, as they purchase goods for the large stores and their smaller stores. Some of the small independents do not have that advantage. We work with the Association of Convenience Stores on all sorts of issues, and it is working with its members to support them and to deal with some of those challenges.
One of the focuses of our inquiry is the impact of poor-quality work on the economy and, obviously, the impact that such work has on people’s health and on the likelihood of whether they will be working. Can you expand a bit on a couple of issues that you raised in your very useful submission? First, on zero-hours contracts, I was struck by the comments in your submission about increased flexibility from the employer, because such contracts are sold on the basis that they benefit everybody because there is flexibility, but your submission describes circumstances in which people are expected to basically be available for long swathes of time, even though they only have a short-hours contract. Can you expand on that? In addition, is there any evidence that those kinds of contracts mean that people are falling out of employment and have to stop working? What are the consequences then?
Historically, people entered the retail sector because it was seen as being family friendly and they could manage working around family commitments or caring commitments. By and large, that is still an incentive for many people who work in retail to stay there but, increasingly, the nature of retail and the competitiveness of the market has introduced changes.
There has always been flexibility, but we now have a culture of 24/7 shopping and retailers trying to cut their margins by ensuring that they have staff in-store only when they absolutely need them, when they know that they will be at their busiest. Many of the large retailers now use electronic scheduling, which maps out when the store is likely to be at its busiest, but that is based on what happened the previous week. Employees now often do not know any more than a week in advance when they are required to work. That gives individuals difficulties when they try to plan to pick up their children from school or if they have an elderly relative that they look after or a next-door neighbour that they keep an eye on.
In our opinion as a union, there is an issue because flexibility is becoming a little bit too much tilted towards what suits the employer rather than the individual. I think that all our members would accept the need to be flexible, but many of them are being asked to be flexible within a growing window of time. They may well have a 16-hour contract or a 20-hour contract a week and may hope that they will work those hours during the school day or in the evenings, but all of a sudden they learn that they have to be available between 6 am and midnight and that they could be asked at any point in the next week to work at any time in that timeframe. That makes life difficult for people.
The committee specifically asked us about experiences, and you will see that our submission outlines a case study about a woman called Sandra. Sandra consented to me talking to the committee about her experience. Sandra is 52 and has worked in retail since she left school. She worked for a large retailer, which had a store closure last October. She had a contract whereby she worked full-time hours and generally worked during the day. She cares for her elderly mother, who is in her 80s.
She was unemployed for a couple of months and got another job with another retailer. She is desperate to work and wants to work—she cannot afford not to work—but the flexibility that is being demanded by that employer has given her difficulties, because she was required to make herself available from 6 am to midnight. However, she needs to give her mother her medication and put her to bed. After six weeks of making herself available in the way that I have described, her mother’s health was deteriorating.
She asked her employer if she could be flexible between 6 am and 9 pm. However, the manager said, “I cannot give you special treatment,” and we need to recognise that there is massive pressure on managers in retail to manage the schedules. She has been forced to give up that job, because she could not balance caring for her mum and the job. She is waiting to hear whether she will be sanctioned because she voluntarily gave up that job. She did not want to stop working; she wants to work. However, that is the dilemma faced by somebody in her position.
So we end up in a position whereby somebody who is qualified to do the job falls out of work. That might be something that we want to go back and look at, because we raised with the Department for Work and Pensions whether it was sanctioning people on the basis of an unreasonable demand in relation to their work. It would be useful to know how prevalent the experience of having to be available between 6 am and midnight now is in the sector. Are there circumstances when employers in the retail sector recognise that issue and will almost ring fence a bit of time when a person does not have to be flexible? Are there examples of good practice in that respect?
The employers that we work with all have partnership agreements with us, which gives us an opportunity to raise with them changing core hours. It used to be the case that employers would often not expect their employees to change their hours any more than once a year. However, increasingly, we find that they expect their employees to consult the trade union on changing their hours much more regularly, often two or three times a year. There is growing uncertainty and there is also growing pressure on managers to manage the schedules. That is also a concern for us as a union, because those managers are our members too and we have a duty of care to them to protect them. There needs to be recognition that employers must have good work-life balance role models, particularly in their management teams, and that is not always there at the moment.
Retail is extremely important for the sustainability of our rural communities. We note from your submission that flexibility is perhaps not available quite as much now as it was a few years ago. A lot of people work part time in rural areas and the shops are very small in some respects, as they often have one, two or three employees. What is your relationship with the Federation of Small Businesses when it comes to trying to ensure that there is sustainability but that people who work in the industry have a good deal in terms of their wage and their flexibility and that we relate that to a person’s wellbeing and the overall wellbeing of the community?
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It is important to note that 60 per cent of retail employees in Scotland are part time. That is higher than the proportion in the rest of the United Kingdom. That difference is perhaps caused by the issues that Mr Robertson has raised about the nature of Scotland being slightly different from that of the rest of the United Kingdom, as there are more rural communities with smaller towns and villages and smaller shops.
I am not aware of us having a great deal of contact with the Federation of Small Businesses. We tend to organise in the larger organisations—the multinational companies that operate across the United Kingdom. Our connections tend to be with the British Retail Consortium and the Scottish Retail Consortium, which I am sure has regular discussions with the FSB. We also speak regularly to the Association of Convenience Stores, which supports small convenience stores across the country. In fact, we are heavily involved with the ACS right now in our keep Sunday special campaign, which is predominantly about England and Wales but affects Scotland because Scottish shop workers get a Sunday premium, which may be at risk if Sunday trading becomes just like trading on any other day across the rest of the UK.
Are you aware of union membership within rural communities in Scotland? We are talking about our towns and villages. Is there high union membership in those areas or is there fairly significant low membership?
No, we have membership in every part of the country, including our rural communities and our island communities. As you would expect, the level of membership varies from constituency to constituency. There is higher density in some parts of Scotland than others, but that is possibly because there is higher density of retail facilities in some parts of Scotland than there is in others. USDAW certainly does not see any community as a no-go one. We would want all retail employees to take advantage of being a member of a trade union, because there are distinct benefits to being part of a trade union.
My final question is about the flexibility of contracts. You mentioned that about 60 per cent of people work part time. That is perhaps to manage the caring commitments that you mentioned. Do you see an advantage in people having more permanent contracts rather than the flexibility of having stated hours? Alternatively, is the flexibility something that you would continue to support in terms of the specific needs of individual workers?
We need to recognise that there has to be flexibility for the employer but there also has to be flexibility for the employee. We need to be careful that we do not arrive at a situation in which there is no certainty about hours worked. That is increasingly what is changing in retail. It is not necessarily always about wanting to work part time; it is about having no choice, because no additional hours are available. Someone might be willing to work full time, but full-time hours are not on offer.
Instead of offering full-time contracts, employers are increasingly offering short-hours contracts rather than part-time contracts and they then ask their employees to work extra hours. There are difficulties with that for the employee, because there is no certainty or guarantee of income. They may well regularly work 30 hours a week, but they do not in actual fact know from week to week how many hours they will work, so they do not know how much money they will have. That gives them difficulties in securing a loan to buy a new car or getting their foot on the mortgage ladder and buying a house, which we think should be the aspiration of all workers, if that is what they choose to do.
There are difficulties if a worker has a short-hours contract but regularly works full-time hours. We would argue that the Government has an obligation to address that issue around contractual hours. That is why we are against zero-hours contracts and we also argue that short-hours contracts are as pernicious as zero-hours contracts.
Evidence given in our inquiry has shown that societies that have high levels of trade union membership have better pay and conditions for their workers, which would seem self-evident. Interestingly, trade union membership is as important as setting a living wage in some countries. In your written evidence, you talk about organising and the difficulty of recruiting, and you say that you have to recruit 9,000 new members in Scotland every year just to stand still. What are the barriers to recruiting in your sector and how could you organise more effectively?
We have a number of membership weeks, and this week is one of them. Across the country, as we speak, we have our full-time officials, organising officers and in-store representatives selling the advantages of being a member of a trade union, particularly USDAW. You are right that we have to recruit 9,000 members annually in Scotland alone just to stand still; and we have to recruit 70,000 members across the whole United Kingdom. Despite that, we are the fastest-growing union in the Trades Union Congress and we have grown our membership by 17 per cent in the past five years, which I think is a pretty remarkable achievement.
There are barriers, and low pay is undoubtedly an issue. Our membership rates are pretty competitive at £9 a month, but if someone is struggling to make ends meet, paying that is a problem and they might think, “I could do something else with that.” Shorter contracts are a barrier, too, because if people are not going to be in a job for very long they might think, “What’s the point of joining a union?”
More and more people are moving into retail who perhaps never saw it as their permanent career path. Perhaps they were doing something else before but were made redundant and have moved into retail. They might think that they are not going to stay there, so they are not ready to join a trade union because they think that they will be moving on. However, it often turns out that they are still there after five or six years, so it is our responsibility to encourage them to join the union while they are there.
One of the reasons why we have successfully grown our membership is because we have invested in training our network of volunteer reps in-store and taking them out of store and bringing them to work for the union for six months. We have a training academy that is all about organising and equipping our reps and preparing them for leadership roles in the union, which the Scottish Government has recognised is important. I think that there is a lot to learn from USDAW about how we recognise, value and support our reps through training. We often invest in our reps to get national accreditation for the skills and qualifications that they leave the academy with. Some of them do not go on to work for USDAW, because other unions pinch them as they are so well trained and unions see in them the value from our investment.
That is fantastic. How will the good work that you are doing be affected by the UK’s 2015-16 Trade Union Bill?
There is no doubt that the Trade Union Bill is of great concern to all of us who value good industrial relations. We could all list lots of things that are wrong with that bill. It seems to me that it has a great deal of focus on strike action, but USDAW members regularly go to work and I am not aware of our having too many retail strikes in living memory. I am slightly concerned about the Government’s desire to focus on stopping strike action in some industries. As a consequence of that, the Government seems to want to take a sledgehammer to industrial relations across all sectors.
For me, there are primarily two things that the Trade Union Bill will damage. First, it will damage good industrial relations. Because of the partnership agreements that we currently have with our employers, they are willing to talk to us before they take big decisions about changes to terms and conditions. They engage with us at an early stage before they talk to the membership so that we can perhaps ameliorate the effects of that. Under the Trade Union Bill, our employers will no longer have any obligation to do that; in fact, doing it might even be considered to be not good practice. I think that good industrial relations will be undermined and workers will suffer as a result of that.
Secondly, the bill seeks to prevent our members from having a political voice. Being a member of a trade union is not just about wages and conditions, and industrial bargaining. That is important and is our core business, but trade union membership is also about having a political voice. That is not about any party political persuasion of the Government; it is about the fact that we sometimes need to lobby on issues that affect our members. There are many members here today across all parties who have supported USDAW’s freedom from fear campaign, which seeks to tackle violence towards shopworkers. I fear that the Trade Union Bill will prevent us from being able to campaign effectively for political change. We work in-store with employers to try to ameliorate the effect of violence on shopworkers, but such work sometimes requires political change, and trade unions have the right to make arguments about that. I fear that the Trade Union Bill risks damaging our ability to do that kind of campaigning work.
Chic Brodie has a follow-up question.
You deal mostly with large retailers, which is a shame, because we clearly need to look after those who work in smaller businesses. What are the benefits of union membership compared with those of other forms of collective bargaining and engagement, such as in John Lewis, for example? Why is John Lewis so successful?
Lots of companies are successful, but so are some of the retailers that we work with. We would argue that there are distinct benefits from being a member of a trade union. It is not just about pay and conditions.
Why is John Lewis so successful? What benefits do you bring to the other large retailers?
It is a co-operative.
As Johann Lamont just said, John Lewis is a co-operative, which might well be an advantage that makes John Lewis different from other retailers. John Lewis sees its staff as partners and not necessarily employees, because they work together. I am not about to damage John Lewis, but although we sometimes talk about it as a great success story, we work with other retailers who pay much higher rates of pay than John Lewis. Perhaps that is the case because they recognise USDAW. As I said, trade union membership brings benefits other than pay and conditions: access to legal services, support if a member has an accident at work, death benefits and maternity grants are all benefits of being a member of a trade union that are in addition to what any worker gets.
I support equity participation, co-operatives and collective bargaining for employees. However, you have still not answered the question: why is John Lewis so successful compared with some other retailers where there is union membership?
It is not for me to justify the success or otherwise of John Lewis. It will probably surprise you to learn that we have a number of members who work for John Lewis and the Waitrose organisation. Those members obviously chose to join USDAW even though we do not have a recognition agreement with their company, because they think that there are additional benefits to being a member of a trade union. It comes back to the point that if they were to be sacked and needed the services of an industrial tribunal right now, the trade union would be in a position to assist them with that. They also have access to our accident helpline. Obviously, despite the successes of the John Lewis Partnership, some members of its staff still think that there is a benefit to being in a trade union.
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Returning briefly to the actual subject of the inquiry, you talked a little bit about the living wage, the minimum wage and the UK Government’s new policy of introducing what it calls a national living wage: an upper band for workers aged 25 and over on the minimum wage. You also talked about flexibility and how that can often be abused or manipulated. I want to talk about the connection between those two themes. I have heard anecdotally that people working in larger retailers in particular find that as they get older and their minimum wage increases because they are no longer in the under-21 or the under-18 band, they get fewer hours or are given hours that the employer knows will not work for them or they will not be able to take; and that there are other ways of easing people out or freezing them out. Is that something you recognise? Do you anticipate it increasing and becoming a bigger problem as the gap between the age bands increases when the age 25 band is introduced?
You are right to identify that as a problem. USDAW has long campaigned against age discrimination in terms of rates of pay for people doing the same job, whether they are 17, 18, 25, 30 or 35. We are concerned about the Government’s new national living wage and its distinction between workers who are under 25 and those over 25. Generally, the retailers that we work with have eradicated, as part of our partnership agreements, differences in rates of pay based on age. That is a benefit of having trade unions and arguing against such differences is one of the reasons why we exist. We believe that the Government’s proposals are inherently unfair and wrong, and we will campaign against them because they will discriminate against individuals. We fear that employers will increasingly look to save money and cut costs by employing younger people and ensuring that they are never on a permanent contract, so that they can get rid of them when they get to the top end of the age scale. That is a real concern for us.
So, once the wage gap between the youngest and the oldest age bands is perhaps £5 an hour—as it could be—there will be a much greater incentive than at present for employers to do what you described.
Absolutely. Retailers are incredibly competitive and always looking to cut their costs. If they are given the opportunity that I described, they will use it.
I have heard some employers openly arguing that they will do that and try to find ways to claw money back from their employees once the so-called national living wage comes in.
In addition, one of the ways in which employers get out of paying premiums that are part of contracts is to take on new staff. It is not about age; it is about employers taking on staff to work on bank holidays, Sundays or holiday periods so that they do not need to pay employees time and a half for working then. That is a concern, because it undermines the collective agreement that there should be premium pay for working on certain occasions.
My final point is about the Scottish Government’s use of the phrase “exploitative zero-hours contracts”. There has been some discussion at committee about what that means and how we can pin it down. The convener put a question about that to the First Minister at the recent Conveners Group meeting. The First Minister said:
“Examples of when a zero-hours contract becomes exploitative is when employers deny workers regular or sufficient working hours or unfairly penalise workers for being unavailable for work or not accepting offers of work.”
Is that enough of a definition or does the exploitative use of zero-hours contracts and other forms of contract go beyond just those practices? For example, you mentioned people being offered hours at short notice.
The definition that the First Minister used is one that we could sign up to. We have no difficulty with that, but we would like it to go slightly further and recognise the difficulties that are caused by short-hours contracts and issues around flexibility. Those two things are different, but they can cause equal difficulties for the employee.
Like Patrick Harvie, I am keen to focus on issues that affect people’s incomes and security. Tax credits have been much talked about this week. In your assessment, what difference does the availability of tax credits make to USDAW members and people working in retail? In your view, what would be the impact of the abolition that has been proposed and what difference will a three-year delay in implementation of that make to members?
It will probably come as no surprise to you to know that USDAW was delighted by the decision of the House of Lords. We lobbied members of the House of Commons and the House of Lords very hard on the issue.
Tax credits are very important to the majority of our members. Sometimes, politicians become obsessed by talking about the living wage and rates of pay, and believe that if we pay the living wage, we will eradicate poverty. The reality is that many of the people who would have been affected by the tax credit cuts are already being paid more than the figure that is proposed to be the national living wage, yet they are still struggling to get by. Although some of that is about the hours that they work, many of them are working full time. It is suggested that they find extra hours, but it is not that simple.
There is a case study in our written evidence about Mark and Agnes, both USDAW members, who live in Port Glasgow. As well as having read the evidence, some of you might have seen Mark; he was on the front of the Daily Record a few weeks ago, in advance of the tax credit decision being taken in the House of Commons. Between them, Mark and Agnes work 60 hours a week. Mark is a delivery driver with a large retailer; his wife works as a checkout operator. They are not work-shy or lazy. They go out to work every single day. However, the reality for them is that life is increasingly difficult. The cost of living has increased and their income has not. They will lose £2,100 a year if the tax credit changes, as proposed, go ahead. If those changes do not go ahead and the Government honours the decision taken in the House of Lords, that will most certainly give them and families like them a real respite and a bit of assistance in the short term. Nevertheless, we need to address the wider issue of in-work poverty. It is not simply about rates of pay. That is why tax credits are so valuable.
Absolutely. I was particularly struck when you said that a majority of your members would be affected by the changes, including a couple for whom £2,100 a year would presumably be a significant share of their income. Are you telling us that people who, at the moment, are faced with financial challenges but are getting by will, in those circumstances, find it much harder to get by?
They absolutely will. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has pointed out that 3 million working families will be affected by the tax credit changes, as proposed by the Government. However, 1.5 million of those families will not benefit from any increase to the national minimum wage, as proposed by the Government, because they are already being paid in excess of that rate of pay. They will be unable to improve their outcomes and change their circumstances. The Government will make changes to the basic rate of pay next year but that will not affect those families. At the same time, they will lose their tax credits and, on top of that, there is the clawback. It is not just about taking away tax credits; the clawback to tax credits will also increase, so that for every additional hour those people work—if they are able to secure additional hours—and every extra £1 they earn, the taxman will take 97 pence of that £1 back from them in clawback. How does that make any sense? It does not.
That is why it needs to be recognised that, in the House of Lords, it was not just Labour members and Liberal Democrats who spoke out about what was being proposed. Conservatives, too, said, “Wait a minute. Let’s hold back. Let’s look at this and think about whether these changes to tax credits, as proposed, are the right thing to do.” I am grateful to Lord Lawson and the other Tories who stood up and spoke out and said, “Let’s wait a minute.”
That is very helpful. You mentioned that wider efforts would be required to tackle in-work poverty. Clearly, the tax system and tax credits are part of that. Are there other measures that this committee should consider in our recommendations that are specifically related to USDAW members and other working people in poverty?
You want to be mindful that it is about rates of pay, tax credits and terms and conditions. It is about recognising the value of those terms and conditions and, sometimes, the value and benefit of the schemes that some employers, whether they are in retail or in other fields, offer to their employees, as well as the in-kind benefits that they generate for individuals.
I never thought that I would hear the day, Ms Whitefield, when you would be praising what Tory peers did in the House of Lords, but there we go.
Me neither, but it is true.
I was an USDAW member when I worked in the grocery trade from 1965 to 1980, as a grocery assistant manager, grocery manager and grocery department manager. Grocery has changed in the past 35 years. I used to get a Wednesday and a Saturday off and never worked a Sunday. Now it is 24/7, as you say.
Many of the questions that I was going to ask have been asked already. In regard to your last comment, we talk about an hourly wage. Should we maybe start to talk about a national minimum weekly wage? Even if you multiply the hourly wage by 35 hours a week, it is still under £300 a week. At the end of the day, if you have got two kids and that wage has to pay your gas, your electric and your food bill—we have all been there—that is not a lot of money.
That was not the question that I was going to ask you, though. [Laughter.] Just to throw a wobbler. You spoke about companies. During my time as an USDAW member, it was an excellent union. You can take that back to USDAW—I have high praise for you. Are there any companies that are deliberately barring you from actively recruiting? You may or may not want to name them. You spoke a couple of minutes ago about one company that says that it is now paying the living wage but does not let you in to get members. I found that quite interesting.
I noticed, when I reviewed the evidence, Mr Lyle, that you have long campaigned and raised with all the committee witnesses the issue of ensuring that people have sufficient income to be able to survive. That is an issue that we need to wrestle with. We need to try to find a solution to ensure that work pays. At the end of the day, all our members want is to be able to go out to work, for work to pay and to be able to look after their families. Right now, for many of them, that is a struggle. There is not an easy solution to this.
12:30In relation to employers that do not recognise us, I do not think it is a secret that Lidl and Aldi do not recognise USDAW. That does not stop us recruiting. There have been activities. If you passed any Aldi and Lidl across the country at some point this week, there will probably have been USDAW members outside those stores trying to recruit. We have members in those stores, which is how we know generally what kind of terms and conditions people are working with. We think that it is regrettable that those employers do not always recognise a trade union, because there would be genuine benefits for them as an employer—not just for the employees—if they were to recognise us.
As a trade union, we will keep on working with all employers to try to get them to recognise us. The more members that we have among their employees, the more likely it is that they will recognise us, which is one of the reasons why, in recent years, we have had pretty high-profile campaigns in relation to Aldi and Lidl, and—I hasten to add—Marks and Spencer.
I think that we are through our questions. Thank you very much, Ms Whitefield, for coming along to the committee this morning. It has been very helpful.
12:31 Meeting continued in private until 12:34.Previous
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2016-17