1st April 2009 - Holidays increase as Minimum Wage enters its 10th year

Ten years since the introduction of the national minimum wage, MEP Linda McAvan is welcoming another improvement in people’s rights at work: from today the UK is implementing an EU agreement to increase paid leave for working people by four days a year.

Starting off at £3.60 back in 1999, the minimum wage has now risen to £5.73 an hour. Today, Labour's minimum wage guarantees someone in full time work an income of more than £10,000 a year.

And as of today, April 1st, everyone in full time work is entitled to at least 28 days (5.6 weeks) paid holiday, including bank holidays. Part time workers are entitled to the same minimum on a pro-rata basis. The increase is in line with the agreement between EU countries under the European Social Chapter.

Linda McAvan says;

“The European Social Chapter, like the National Minimum Wage, was rejected by Margaret Thatcher and John Major and did not apply in the UK until after the election of the Labour government in 1997. David Cameron has promised any future Conservative government will scrap the European Social Chapter.”

She added;

“When people wonder that politics never achieves anything, they should reflect on the Minimum Wage. The Tories always opposed to the minimum wage, just as they continue to oppose the European Social Chapter. And in our own region, UKIP MEP Godfrey Bloom says that ‘there’s a very strong case for getting rid of it’. These are the decisions and the views that low paid working people, who depend on these policies, should know about.”

 

For information: Yorkshire and Humber UKIP MEP, Godfrey Bloom, told BBC Radio 2's Jeremy Vine Show on 29th December 2008 that;
“There’s a very strong case for suspending it and there’s a very strong case for getting rid of it altogether. It’s always been a mystery to me, as a businessman myself, why it would be the business of a politician to tell me what I can employ somebody for in a contract freely entered into. If I want to employ somebody at £4 an hour that’s my business, it’s nothing whatsoever to do with a politician.”