Frequently Asked questions about a £15 Minimum wage

It happens a lot, but policy motions like £15 Minimum Wage require answering a lot of questions over and over, so I thought that in the spirit of expediency I’d write this FAQ to explain aspects of the motion and how it interacts with GPEW policy.

• Isn't the £15 figure going to go out of date - I don't want a "hard number"

  For everyone who isn't a constitutional nerd, there are two kinds of policy, Policies for a Sustainable Society (or the PfSS) and the Record of Policy Statements, (or RoPS). RoPS are in the moment statements, they're temporary, PfSS is permanent until Conference changes it. Manifestos are essentially just very very long RoPS, because they're policy for a general election.

  Many people treat RoPS that are 5-10 years old like they're current policy, why they do that is for them, but it's not how the system is supposed to work.

  Now many people, including some notable professors of economics, have made the rather annoying and forseeable error of putting figures into the PfSS which immediately go out of date (which they were told in plenary to their face at the time and totally ignored). My motion doesn't affect the PfSS whatsoever.

  The motion explicitly states "at least £15" so X=≥15, so, even if people treat it as permanent, they can only go up from £15, not down. As it should be.

• How will small businesses in Cornwall survive if the minimum wage goes up?

  Edit - for a personal perspective by a Cornish Green Councillor read here.

  It's entirely possible that some bosses run businesses that are only made viable by the ruthless exploitation of the working class. If those bosses decide that they don't want to take a reasonable pay cut so that the people they employ can live in dignity, it's entirely possible that the business might fold.

  To use a personal example, I'm a barista, me and my colleagues make coffee for a small independent coffee shop, we all cycle to work or take public transport, because we're paid £9.50 an hour, none of us can afford to own cars, a number of us still live at home because we can't afford to live in a housing crisis wracked city.

  Our employers drive to work, they own their homes, one drives in a big white SUV. They take multiple holidays a year. We're not asking for much, maybe they take the bus or train as well, and we get paid a dignified living wage?

  Similarly, our employers don't work in the shop anymore, so one has to ask, why are they entitled to take an big wage from our labour?

• How are the Leadership/Spokespeople supposed to defend this in the media?

  If we’re formulating policy based on what’s palatable on the Today Programme we’re no different to Kier Starmer and not fit to be an insurgent leftwing party.

  Now, there is no one right answer on this, but my advice to anyone having to defend this policy is to attack the premise, not the detail.

  Why can landlords raise rents with no criticism, CEOs take millions in bonuses, bosses take how extravagant pay, but the moment we try and raise the minimum wage suddenly everyone loses their minds? Why is it Jeff Bezos can take home enough money and pay so little tax, but when his workers demand dignity and pay increases suddenly everyone wants background papers and surveys?

  You should attack the media premise that bosses and landlords taking massive pay increases is fine while their workers are going to foodbanks.

  You could cite the work by the Progressive Economic Foundation, but to be honest that's forgettable response territory.

• What is current minimum wage policy?

  So as has been mentioned above, the PfSS doesn't have numbers in it so that it doesn't immediately go out of date, and the policies on the minimum wage generally speak about dignity or how it should be a Living Wage.

  In the RoPS, the most recent figure was motion supporting the £15 an hour campaign Fight For 15 from Autumn Conference 2021.

  The figure before that was the 2019 manifesto figure of £12.

• Didn't we do this at last Autumn Conference?

  Yes and No.

  The motion passed at Autumn Conference 2021 was titled “Solidarity with the BFAWU & £15 Minimum Wage” and committed the party to “state our support for their campaign ‘Fight for 15’ for a £15-an-hour minimum wage, for an end to age-based pay discrimination and for better working conditions for all workers.”

  One would assume that this commits the party to supporting a £15 minimum wage, however if you read it so literally that you’re being intentionally obtuse, it means the GPEW supports the singular trade union campaign and only that. The motion passed does not commit us to campaigning for a £15 minimum wage or introducing it.

  The new motion not only explicitly states our support for actually introducing a £15 minimum wage, but means we support all trade union campaigns, whether that be the RMT, BFAWU or Unite.

• Why not the Living Wage Foundation?

  The Living Wage Foundation is a small c conservative organisation, whose current estimation of a “Real Living Wage” is £10.90 outside London and £11.95 in London.

  This would represent a fall in GPEW terms as our 2019 manifesto said £12, and I wouldn’t support that.

  The idea of attaching ourselves to the LWF rate isn’t something I would support, because the LWF vastly underestimate the cost of Housing specifically, and I think we ourselves should decide what the standard of living should be. It’s not something you can abdicate the politics of.

  Linked here is what the LWF base their calculations off of, the JRF’s MIS, which calculates the weekly budget for rent, for a single age working Adult at £95. Which is the figure you would use if you have absolutely no experience of the private rental sector.

• Why not UBI?

  I agree with a UBI. I’ll be honest, it took reading Utopia for Realists by Rutger Bregman to convince me though, even though I was a member of a party that argued for it.

  Going into the next election, we need policies that don’t require a background paper for ordinary people to understand. A £15 Minimum Wage does what it says on the tin. A Universal Basic Income provokes a “what’s that?” from most people that aren’t policy nerds.

  We need both, but only one can be the headline.

• Who has endorsed the motion?

  This motion has been endorsed by,

  1. The Green Party Trade Union Group.

  2. The Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union.

  3. The Rail, Maritime and Transport Union.

  4. Hopefully you!

  The TUC, Trades Union Congress, has officially started a campaign for a £15 Minimum Wage.

• How much will this cost the Public Sector?

  The Progressive Economy Forum has forecast an improvement in the government finances of £25 billion(Page 8&52) under a £15 minimum wage. This is because while some public sector organisations would have to pay their lowest paid more, the increase to the exchequer’s tax take - through income tax and National Insurance Contributions - far outweighs this.

  Given the majority of people in poverty in the UK today live in working households, there would also be substantial savings to Universal Credit payments (£4.2bn)(Page 8).

  This total improvement in the government finances would allow for all businesses with under 50 employees - 97% of businesses in the UK - to be wholly compensated for their increased wage costs.

  Fundamentally, it is affordable, and it will be good for the public sector.