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

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