Big firms have no excuse for failing to pay workers minimum wage - Yorkshire Post Letters

The Department of Business and Trade has just released the names of 202 employers who failed to pay 63,000 UK workers their minimum legal entitlement.

The lowest paid employees in the country were thereby deprived of almost £5m. The bad employers face penalties of an additional £7m. And this is just the tip of the iceberg; there will be many more workplaces where workers are underpaid and do not know it.

Shockingly, the offenders were not just small service companies. They included WH Smith (over £1m unlawfully not paid), Lloyds Pharmacy and Marks & Spencer and Argos. Between them, the four companies short-changed their workers by almost £3m.

It is true that the legislation is poorly worded, with half a dozen different minimum rates (the core figure is now £10.42 per hour for employees aged 23 and over) and complex arrangements for things like deductions for uniform, over-slow enforcement, and avoidable confusion since Tory Chancellor George Osborne introduced a minimum living wage not applicable to all workers. But the big firms have large HR and legal departments, so really have no excuse.

Your readers might notice that the announcement of infringements once a year pales into significance alongside persistent statements by Ministers that wage increases must be avoided to reduce inflation, even after 13 years of falling real earnings for workers.

And readers might notice that virtually all 202 offending employers are characterised by zero or very low trade union membership.

Trade unions will identify underpayments and get them corrected within days, rather than the months taken by the Department of Business and Trade.

Unions are also the best route for lobbying for higher minimum rates and for organising workers to secure pay above the minimum rates.