Day 180 - 31 Oct 95 - Page 13
1 K. Harrison make clear, with staffing levels scheduled to
2 income. The system depends on a highly flexible employment
3 contract - with staff flexing their hours, willingly or
4 not. It is central to management's approach, to planning,
5 programming and budgeting within restaurants, and within
6 the wider organisation.
7
8 "21. On the question of whether the company pays 'low
9 wages', in public policy terms, one yardstick would be the
10 former 'floor' of pay set by the 26 wages councils in
11 certain industries, mainly in the service sector, until the
12 councils were abolished effective from August 1993."
13
14 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Can you just pause there, because I did not
15 manage to get a note. (To the witness): Tell me -- and
16 I will have it somewhere else -- what the wages councils
17 were which were relevant to the catering industry.
18 A. Thank you, my Lord. The -----
19
20 Q. Can you just give me those their names again slowly?
21 A. Yes. The Licensed Residential Establishments Wages
22 Council, the Unlicensed Places of Refreshment Wages Council
23 (which is essentially cafes); and, in fact, there is a
24 third one which covers pubs and clubs, and that is the
25 Licensed but Non-residential, LNR -- Licensed
26 Non-residential Establishments Wages Council.
27
28 If I may add in parenthesis, those three organisations
29 together would have covered 1.1 million out of the
30 2.3 million wages council protected employees, adult
31 employees.
32
33 MR. MORRIS: Continuing with your statement: "These rates were
34 well below half average earnings in the UK. A widely
35 recognised inter-governmental formula lies in the higher
36 standards set by the Council of Europe's 'decency
37 threshold' of pay, set at 68 per cent of the average
38 earnings in any affiliated state, including Britain. In
39 1994, the decency threshold was £221.50 a week based on
40 gross weekly earnings for full-time employees on adult
41 rates working a 37.7 hour week (source: the Government's
42 New Earnings Survey 1994).
43
44 "22. Following wages councils abolition, Britain and
45 Ireland are the only two EU Member States without
46 cross-industry minimum wage systems. Reflecting concerns
47 among our European partners over the development of labour
48 market practices 'which no longer afford those concerned a
49 decent standard of living', the European Commission adopted
50 an Opinion on an equitable wage on 1st September 1994 (copy
51 published in the European Industrial Relations Review No.
52 239 enclosed). An equitable wage is defined as a reward
53 which, "in the context of the society in which [employees]
54 live and work, is fair and sufficient to enable them to
55 have a decent standard of living." That "paragraph (1)" is
56 from that document?
57 A. It is.
58
59 Q. So that is from paragraph (1) that document.
60
