5th November 2012, 11:23 AM
(This post was last modified: 5th November 2012, 11:29 AM by Komadori4.)
According to the caculations of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation all the minimum salaries, current and proposed, are simply inadequate. I quote from their 2012 report (available here: http://www.jrf.org.uk/publications/MIS-2012: 'A single person in the UK needs to earn at least ?16,400 a year before tax in 2012, to afford a minimum acceptable standard of living'.
PIfA level is not unskilled manual labour, and it is no simple matter to achieve this professional grade (nor should it be). My point is simply this - No unit will 'go to the wall' if every unit has a clear and fair minimum living wage scale because those will be the only options (units could then be chosen on the basis of the quality of their work, not 'affordability'). It is a bit sad to hear 'lets not push to hard', etc when what is being pushed for is so low. If BAJR and IFA will not stand up for a living wage at the bottom of the pay scale we can be sure that government and industry will not. It is this level of pay that needs to be addressed, not all of those that are higher, so an increase here should be affordable and give those higher up the scale a nice warm glow inside.
PIfA level is not unskilled manual labour, and it is no simple matter to achieve this professional grade (nor should it be). My point is simply this - No unit will 'go to the wall' if every unit has a clear and fair minimum living wage scale because those will be the only options (units could then be chosen on the basis of the quality of their work, not 'affordability'). It is a bit sad to hear 'lets not push to hard', etc when what is being pushed for is so low. If BAJR and IFA will not stand up for a living wage at the bottom of the pay scale we can be sure that government and industry will not. It is this level of pay that needs to be addressed, not all of those that are higher, so an increase here should be affordable and give those higher up the scale a nice warm glow inside.