Autumn Statement bad news for women

And research shows 81 per cent of benefit and tax credit cuts come from women.

In his Autumn Statement on 5 December the Chancellor George Osborne announced cuts to benefits, tax credits and tax changes which will save the Treasury £1.06bn.

But according to research, commissioned by Shadow Equalities Minister Yvette Cooper, 81 per cent of these savings, or £867 million, will come from women.

Anne Longfield, chief executive of 4Children explained: "What seems to be happening is there's a transference of targeting – from benefits which had gone primarily to women with children, to targeting personal allowance changes which are for everyone."

So whilst most working people will welcome the extra £235 a year from an increase in their basic tax allowance, Working and Child Tax Credits, Child Benefit, Statutory Maternity and

Adoption pay, housing benefit and out of work benefits like Jobseekers Allowance will only increase be 1 per cent a year from April 2013, a real-terms cut of 1.7 - 2.2 per cent a year, if inflation remains at current levels.

Gllian Guy, chief executive of Citizen's Advice said: “The government can’t keep hitting the same people over and over again.

“Let’s not forget, below inflation benefit increases will not just hit people who are out of work. It will also hurt working families in low paid jobs who have already been hit by wage freezes and cuts in working hours.”

And as WVoN reported last week, a report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that most working age people in poverty are now in work, rather than unemployed.

Geri Goddard, Chief Executive of the Fawcett Society, said women had already paid for two thirds of the changes to taxes and welfare since 2010, and women’s unemployment was at a 24-year high.

“The various policies unveiled in the name of growth offer little to support women's greater participation in the labour market or wider economy.

“While further investment in roads and other big infrastructure projects is welcome, few of the 1.01 million unemployed women will find jobs as a result.

She added: “Women will continue to act as shock absorbers for the cuts.

“It’s vital the forthcoming Spending Review considers the differing impact these measures will have on women and men.

“In particular government will need to go further than just a household income level impact analysis if they are to gauge the likely impact of their policies on every day women's lives in any meaningful way.

"At the same time, keeping public sector pay rises at below inflation levels – a real terms pay cut – will also affect women disproportionately, as they make up the bulk of the public sector workforce.

Cooper believes that this has come about because there are now so few women at the top of government.

"This is the problem with having so few women in the cabinet, nobody asks the question," she said.

Story published on Womens Views on News, December 7, 2012

Working households in poverty says report

Story published in Women's Views on News, December 3, 2012

A new report finds that the nature of poverty in the UK is changing.

And most working-age households affected by poverty are in work rather than unemployed, with low income (or poverty) defined as ‘people living in households with income below 60 per cent of the median for that year’.

For the tax year ending 5 April 2012, the median gross annual earnings for men were £28,700, and for women were £23,100.

According to the report, ’Monitoring Poverty and Social Exclusion 2012′, written by the New Policy Institute for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation there are now 6.1 million people living on less than two thirds of the average wage – on around £8,400 a year.
And around 6.4 million workers are under-employed – wanting to work more but unable to obtain extra hours.

According to the Office for National Statistics, part-time workers are four times more likely to be those under-employed.

Just under one fifth of people in Britain are on low incomes at any one time, but poverty affects a third at some time in a four-year period.

Over half of the children living in poverty now live in working households.

And poverty is no longer confined to those living in social housing: most poor people live in the private rented sector.

The government’s welfare reforms are worsening their plight, as they are cutting things like tax credits and housing benefits, which the working poor need to supplement low wages and meet rising housing costs.

And these trends are more likely to affect women. Women living in the most deprived areas can now expect to live shorter lives than men in the richest parts of the UK.

The report concludes that ’changing the benefits system will not solve problems such as in-work poverty, increasing underemployment and rising health inequalities’.

According to a recent TUC study, three quarters of the UK’s over 8 million part-time workers are women and they earn 36 per cent less per hour than full-time workers.

The regional earnings distribution figures released recently by the Office for National Statistics showed how wages in the UK differed by sex.
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While weekly earnings were highest in London for both sexes, earnings for men were lowest in Northern Ireland, at £479, and for women they were lowest in the East Midlands, at £402.

Bangladesh open cast mine threatens fundamental human rights, warns UN

Story published in Womens Views on News March 5, 2012

The United Nations has warned the Government of Bangladesh that a planned open cast mine will threaten the fundamental human rights of people living in the area.

The mine is planned for the Phulbari region of North-Western Bangladesh.

Last month, WVoN reported on a campaign to halt the development of the massive mine and a coal fired power station, which could displace up to a quarter of a million rural people.

The mine would reportedly extract 572 million tonnes of coal over the next 36 years from a site covering nearly 6,000 hectares.  The project would destroy 12,000 hectres overall, 80 per cent of which is fertile agricultural land.

Opponents also claim the project could cause irrevocable damage to the Sunderbans, one of the world’s largest mangrove forests, as the mined coal would be transported through the area before being exported.

The UN statement, issued on behalf of seven independent human rights experts, comes after US-based human rights group International Accountability Project submitted an urgent appeal for action to ten UN human rights experts in September 2011.

The statement said: “The Government of Bangladesh must ensure that any policy concerning open-pit coal mining includes robust safeguards to protect human rights.

“In the interim, the Phulbari coal mine should not be allowed to proceed, because of the massive disruptions it is expected to cause.”

The statement confirmed opponents’ fears that the Phulbari development would displace vulnerable farming communities and threaten the livelihoods of thousands more by causing irreversible damage to water sources and ecosystems in the region.

The experts were concerned that a national coal policy, currently being discussed by a parliamentary committee in Bangladesh, might allow open-pit coal mining and therefore allow the Phulbari project to go ahead.

“We welcome Prime Minister Hasina’s acknowledgement that coal extraction in Bangladesh would threaten densely populated areas.

“Mixed messages, however, are emerging and investors continue to push forward,” the experts warned.

Speaking to WVoN, Rumana Hashem, one of the leaders of the campaign against the mine in the UK, welcomed the statement and hoped the Bangladesh Government would take the findings seriously.

Kate Hoshour, senior research fellow, at International Accountability Project, added: “We are extremely pleased to learn that seven UN experts took coordinated action this week by calling for an immediate halt to the project, and are hopeful that their action will avert a humanitarian and environmental catastrophe in Bangladesh.”

Five million UK workers cannot afford essentials this Christmas

Story published on  Women's Views on News, Thursday, December 22, 2011 

As you dash out to do the last of your Christmas shopping, spare a thought for the person behind the counter, as she is likely to be one of the five million British workers paid too little to cover basic costs like housing, food and clothing.

In a recent report, Low Pay Britain, the Resolution Foundation found that 27 per cent of women and 16 per cent of men earned less than the living wage.

Sixty per cent of retail staff, over half of workers in elementary jobs such as labouring and a third of workers in service occupations like hairdressing earn less than the living wage - the hourly rate needed for an individual to meet their own or their family’s basic day-to-day needs.

The living wage is currently set at £8.30 an hour for London and £7.20 for the rest of the UK.
Low-paid workers are more likely to be young and working part-time in the private sector.

Amy* is 25 and lives in Scotland, and earns £6.30 an hour as a senior sales assistant.

“People tend to think that you’re only working in a shop so just standing about not doing much, but you still have to go into work every day and do a job,” she said.

Her colleagues who are under 18 get £3.57, which is below the national minimum wage of £3.68 for workers of that age.

“I just don’t understand why, when they’re doing the exact same work, that they get so much less.

“In principle obviously I think the minimum wage should be higher than what it is, but I think everyone should be on the same rate if doing the same job,” she said.

Amy feels trapped. “The only experience I have now is working in shops really. I’m kind of stuck until I can save enough to do what I really want – and with the money I’m on that will be a while.

“There’s nothing I can do – where can I go?”

Amy doesn’t feel able to challenge her rate of pay, particularly in the current climate.

“They’re constantly talking about ‘cuts’ so I doubt very much that an increase in pay would be something they’d even consider,” she said.

Citizens UK, a community organisation made up of trade unions, religious groups and community activists, established a Living Wage Campaign in London in 2001, after parents in the East End told them they were frustrated that working two minimum wage jobs left no time for family life.

It has since established the Living Wage Foundation, and 140 employers including Barclays, KPMG and retail chain Lush are now paying the enhanced rate, lifting 10,000 families out of poverty.

Research by the foundation found 80 per cent of employers reported that the living wage had enhanced the quality of work, 66 per cent said it had a significant impact on recruitment and retention and 75 per cent believed it had enhanced their ethical credentials among consumers.

Guy Stallard, director of facilities at KPMG, said: “We’ve found that paying the living wage is a smart business move as increasing wages has reduced staff turnover and absenteeism, whilst productivity and professionalism have subsequently increased.”

The Living Wage movement is spreading across the UK
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Glasgow City Council adopted a ‘living wage’ of £7 per hour in 2009, and 700 council staff got a pay rise of £1,100 per year.

In 2010 the Glasgow living wage was increased to £7.15, and in April 2012 it will increase to £7.20.
So far 160 companies have signed up, and the Council would like to encourage more firms, especially in hospitality and retail, to follow suit.

One of the beneficiaries is 28-year-old Sarah*, a catering worker who started out on an hourly rate of £5.73 on a zero hour contract.

With low pay and unpredictable hours, she was finding it hard to cope.
“I was relying a lot on my parents for help. I didn’t know from one week to the next how many hours, if any, I was going to be getting,” she said.

The irregular working pattern meant it was difficult to access government support such as housing benefit.

“When I was working, it was too difficult to apply for anything like that because my situation changed from week to week.

“We would have to struggle on ill as you couldn’t afford for your wages to be docked, and we never really knew what holidays we were entitled to,” she said.

Sarah’s situation is set to improve as the company she works for has now been taken over by Cordia Services through Glasgow City Council.

She has been transferred to a 35-hour per week contract paying £7.30 an hour with sick pay, 28 days holiday and a points system, which tops up the hourly rate for evening and weekend working.

“If it works out the way it looks on paper then it will be great. Now I know I’m getting 35 hours I can work out my money better,” she said.

Glasgow City Council would like to be able to stipulate that all its contractors pay the living wage but has been advised that this would be illegal, so is pressing the Scottish government for a change in the law.

Despite this, the council has signed a £150m waste disposal contract with Viridor which stated its intention to pay the living wage from the outset.

Councillor Gordon Matheson, leader of Glasgow City Council, said that when they first considered introducing the living wage, the economy was buoyant, unemployment low and the number of jobs being created was increasing.

“But times have changed. In Glasgow, we are relatively well placed to avoid the worst effects of recession due to the massive body of work associated with the Commonwealth Games, but we have still felt an impact.

“However, for me, this actually strengthens the case for tackling low pay. We know that in times of recession, the impact is most keenly felt by low-paid workers.

“I have always believed that work is the best and most sustainable route out of poverty and yet recent studies have shown that the majority of children living in poverty in the UK have at least one parent in paid employment.

“The message from this is clear: low paid, transient, unskilled work is not sufficient to lift people out of poverty and that is something that all tiers of government must address.”
To find out more follow the links below:

The Living Wage Foundation

The Scottish Low Pay Campaign

Glasgow Living Wage

The Poverty Alliance

*The names of the workers featured in this article have been changed.