A wage you
can live on
An activist's guide to
better pay for all
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A wage you can live on
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Safe, secure work
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Guaranteed hours each week
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Training and career opportunities
5
A collective voice and union representation
If you don't have these things then join us in
campaigning to win the five things that make
decent work for all!
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Introduction from Steve Turner, AGS
Everyone deserves at least a wage they can live on not simply
survive on - decent wages alongside guaranteed hours, a safe,
secure workplace, opportunities and a collective voice, are the
cornerstones of decent work.
This short guide to winning better pay for all is the first in a
series on each of these topics aimed at supporting people in
securing, protecting and advancing their interests at work. This has
been hard in recent years for many, even in well organised workplaces.
On average, workers have suffered a seven year fall in real wages (where the
cost of living outstrips any increase in wages), the longest fall in living standards since the 1870s. A
deep recession and the slowest economic recovery in history has meant a great deal of energy has been
focused on defending jobs as businesses have closed and government cuts have hit public services,
opposing opportunistic employers who have sought to use these circumstances to undermine long
fought for collective agreements, and in the public sector also fighting a government imposed pay cap.
Many of our Stewards and Officers have shown a great deal of creativity in responding to extremely
difficult situations in recent years, negotiating solutions that enable people to retain employment and
trying to maintain living standards as much as possible.
Over the longer term, the legal shackles on trade unions have tightened, employment rights weakened
and the structures supporting good industrial relations and collective bargaining dismantled in many
parts of our economy. There has been a systematic drive to privatise and deregulate as much as
possible. As a result the wages of middle and low earners have stagnated, inequality has grown and the
share of our economic wealth going to workers as wages has shrunk by 13% since its highpoint in 1975.
Now, we are seeing the majority of new jobs being created in unorganised, insecure, low paid sectors of
the economy such as retail, services, care and hospitality. This represents a challenge to us as a union engaging and building a relationship with those currently outside of our movement. These are some of
the most vulnerable workers – particularly young and migrant workers who have no experience of trade
unions but desperately need collective solutions that only trade union organisation can bring.
Because the reality remains that in workplaces where trade unions are organised pay is higher than in
workplaces where that are not. Across all employees this pay difference is 16% and for women it is a
whopping 30%! This is why Unite’s young members have launched their ‘Decent Work for All’
campaign, and this guide is part of the materials supporting that campaign, getting our members active
in beginning to fight back against insecure work. With the help of Unite workers are fighting back; at the
time of writing Unite is forcing restaurant chains such as Pizza Express, Zizzi and Giraffe stop skimming
staff tips and we have just secured the Living Wage for thousands of workers at Unilever.
Negotiating decent pay is not easy, but is at the core of what we do as a union. I hope you find this guide
useful to you at your workplace; helping you to plan, prepare, organise and negotiate for better wages
and alongside that dignity at work for the members we proudly represent.
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This briefing is useful for those in workplaces where Unite is recognised to negotiate on pay, terms
and conditions. If you are not yet recognised this guide also has useful sections to help you pull
together a pay claim as part of a wider campaigning and organising strategy at your workplace to
gain recognition from your employer. We have broken it down into planning your pay claim and
campaign, gathering relevant information, engaging your members, and negotiating.
Some key points to emphasise at the start are…
Engage your members!
This is their claim, and people need to feel involved, understand it and be prepared to campaign for
it – especially if negotiations fail. In preparing your claim ask members what is important to them and
what their priorities are (an example questionnaire is on page 13). Remember to ask your members
what skills they have that could help prepare the claim – we have a wealth of talent in our union that
is often untapped...largely because we don't ask!
Communication is key!
A pay claim and the campaign around it should be seen as part of your ongoing organising and
recruitment strategy in your workplace. Make sure your members are engaged, and that at every stage
you are providing clear, up to date information. This can be through regular emails and newsletters –
even if nothing is happening it can be worth letting people know this rather than allowing rumours to
take hold. Be creative in how you communicate as your pay negotiations develop – newsletters are
good, but also consider posters that can be seen by everyone in a workplace. Wearing stickers can be a
good way of members and non-members showing their support for the pay claim.
Keep your Regional and National Officer informed
This is not the same as getting them to do the pay claim. Keep them up to date with what you are doing
so if you need to get your Officer involved formally at a later stage they know what has taken place.
Useful information and campaigning tools
Many of the Unite produced guides on a number of topics are available electronically and can all be
found at www.unitetheunion.org/guides You need to be a member to access this webpage.
Make sure you get the Unite Bargaining Brief!
All reps should receive it once a month – it contains the latest information on pay deals across the
country, inflation figures and other useful information. If you do not receive it email
[email protected] to be added to the mailing list. You can also access archive
editions at www.unitetheunion.org/unite-at-work/informationresources
Tell people the result of your pay claim!
Inform your Regional and National Officer and other workplace reps, and make sure that you enter it
on the Payline database. Payline allows you to compare pay deals across similar companies,
organisations and outsourced contracts. It is available for all Unite reps to access – but the quality of
the information available relies on us all inputting the latest information we have. It is simple, and can
be done at www.unitetheunion.org/LRDpayline.
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Planning your pay claim
Think about your overall strategy
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Are there other unions are involved in your workplace and do structures exist to agree pay
claims?
What approach are management likely to take, and what criteria do they use when deciding
what pay offer to make? How can you rebut some arguments they might make around a low
pay offer? What issues do they emphasise – for example, the need to recruit and retain trained
employees, motivation, the need to reduce absentee rates?
Are they likely to act in a confrontational way to try and reduce the role of trade unions in the
workplace?
When thinking about what content you are going to put in your pay claim and what the main
demand of your pay claim will be as part of a wider campaign to promote the union positively,
organise and recruit some questions you should consider are:
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What would maintain and improve the value of people’s earnings?
Has your employer carried out an Equal Pay Audit?
How are you going to find out members’ priorities? Are there other working conditions
alongside pay that people feel very strongly about? Is there a particular section or occupational
grades of the organisation you are weaker in that face specific issues, such as different working
patterns?
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•
How can you engage with everyone working for an employer who could be organised, for
example, apprentices, agency workers and staff on temporary contracts? Are there people in
your workplace under a different employer, such as outsourced cleaners, where it would be
beneficial for all to co-operate on a joint campaign?
Amongst you plot out and agree a timeline – in many organisations there is a regular set time of the
year when pay claims are submitted for negotiations to begin. You need to think about what your
pay claim is going to include, the information you need, how you are going to involve members and
continue to communicate with them.
You should allocate tasks and make sure a named person is responsible for each task with agreed
deadlines that fit in with your overall timeline. Information gathering can take time as you need to
give people time to respond, or fit in around other duties. Members will need notice of any
meetings, and if you conduct an online survey you will need to allow time for people to respond
and for their answers to be collated. Is there a set date you need to get the written pay claim to
management? You don’t want to be rushed at the last minute, so plan plenty of time.
Gathering the relevant information
Below are examples of information that you should consider pulling together for a comprehensive
pay claim – but you don’t need information overload. Think about what information from the below
is relevant to making the argument from Unite members for their pay claim to your employer.
Gathering information on the cost of living
You should collect the necessary information on inflation (outlined below), and the increase of
particular essentials. To make your argument as strong as possible consider collecting information on
the costs people face in pounds and pence as this can have more impact. It can also be helpful for you
as a negotiator to work out what the real costs are that different groups of your members face.
Inflation
The rate of inflation is the percentage increase in the price of a typical household’s basket of goods
and services compared to the same time last year. In broad terms, if pay increased at the same rate
as inflation then we say the value of wages has stayed the same – people can afford the same
things they could a year ago. If inflation increases faster than wages then we say the value of
wages has fallen in real terms – people need to spend more of their wages to be able to afford the
same things as they could last year. And if wages have grown faster than inflation there has been a
real terms increase. For these reasons the base line of inflation is often used as a starting point for
negotiators. Over the past decade inflation has increased faster than average for lower income
households. This is because they spend a larger proportion of their wages on essential items –
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which as we show in this section have increased in price at times at a much faster rate than the
headline average inflation rate.
There are several rates, but the four main ones are RPI, CPI, RPIJ and CPIH.
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RPI has been the preferred measure for pay bargaining by both employers and trade unions for
many years. This is because the ‘basket of goods and services’ it measures includes housing
costs – a significant part of people’s expenditure. It is still used by government to uprate some
things, such as train fares, but RPI has stopped being classified as an official ‘national statistic’.
RPIJ is new and is a variation on RPI that is calculated in a slightly different way to meet
international statistics standards. RPI remains the rate of inflation we believe pay negotiators
should continue to use.
CPI is used for uprating state benefits. It tends to be lower than RPI and more employers have
been trying to use it for their pay negotiations. However, it does not include housing costs, such
as Council Tax, mortgage interest payments or buildings insurance. The Office for National
Statistics now also publishes CPIH which is a variation on CPI that does include housing costs.
> You can get the latest inflation figures from www.ons.gov.uk.
Real cost of living increases
We have illustrated below how some of
the essentials that will form a significant
part of the expenditure of your members
have increased faster than the average
headline inflation figure. This is why it is
important not just to look at the headline
inflation rate, but the increases in some
basic goods and services that people will
have to meet the cost of – the real living
costs people are faced with.
•
Average electricity bills
£700
£650
£600
Scotland
£500
Northern Ireland
£450
£400
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Electric and Gas Bills, Water and
Rates
Average electricity and gas bills have
increased significantly in recent
years. Electricity bills alone have
increased by 27% in England and
Wales, 21% in Scotland and 17% in
Northern Ireland between 2010 and
2014. This has meant people having
to find between an extra £96 and
£119 a year now compared to 2010.
At the same time average gas bills
are now over £700 a year (up from
just under £550 a year in 2010).
England & Wales
£550
Average gas bills
£750
£700
£650
England & Wales
£600
Scotland
£550
£500
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
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The average household expenditure
on Water and other rates – including
Council Tax in England, Wales and
Scotland – has increased from £406
to £452 a year across the UK
between 2010 and 2013, an
increase of 11%.
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Food & non alcoholic drinks spend
£3,200
£3,000
£2,800
£2,600
£2,400
Food: the average household also
spends over £3000 a year on food,
up from £2766 in 2010, an increase
of 11%.
£2,200
£2,000
2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
Transport: average spend on
transport (cars, buses, trains and other public transport) has increased 8% from 2010;
households spend an average of £3661 a year.
Housing: housing has on average increased faster than wages for a number of years. In 2014
the TUC calculated that only five local authority areas in the North West still had houses on sale
that cost less than four times the average local salary!
Childcare: Between 2010 and 2015 a part time nursery place for a child under two increased
by 33% - £1,533 more a year now than in 2010.
Where can I get the latest information if I need it?
Bargaining Brief includes not just the percentage increase in the headline inflation figure, but the
percentage increase in essentials in food, housing, and transport over the previous 12 months.
Electricity and gas bills if you want the actual amounts rather than percentage increase, the
government regularly publishes these figures. They are available at http://bit.ly/energybillstatistics
There are lots of tables – you just need to look for ‘Average annual domestic electricity bills for UK
countries’ and ‘Average annual domestic gas bills for UK countries’ to download. You will then see
the average electricity or gas bill.
Water bill amounts are available from Ofwat for England and Wales. You can find them at
www.ofwat.gov.uk/consumerissues/chargesbills/household/. Click on ‘Charges and Bills
publications’ for the relevant year, and then you will see a document titled ‘Average metered and
unmetered bills’. For Scotland the information is available www.scottishwater.co.uk
Childcare costs are collected and published every year at www.familyandchildcaretrust.org
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Gathering information on how your pay rates compare
How do they compare to others in your industry?
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>
You can find out how your pay rates compare to others in your industry by asking other trade
union representatives and you can also search the Unite pay and conditions database
(provided by LRD Payline)
www.unitetheunion.org/LRDpayline
How do they compare to those at the top of your organisation?
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It can be useful to work out the ratio between the lowest paid and the highest paid in your
organisation, and to find out what increase in pay – or pay in kind – the highest paid have
received and how this compares to the rest of the workforce. Details of executive pay will be
found in a company’s annual report, and charities and public bodies also have an obligation to
make the information public. Research by the High Pay Centre has found that in FTSE 100
companies the pay of those at the top is 133 times that of their average employee and that
organisations with higher pay ratios also experience higher staff turnover. This can be used to
argue for making the pay ratio between the highest, middle and lowest earners in your
workplace smaller – in short, a bigger pay boost for those at the lower and middle end of the
pay rates and stopping the very top racing away from their employees. To calculate the pay
ratio in your workplace or employer, simply divide the higher figure by the lower figure.
How does pay compare to the Minimum Income Standard?
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>
Each year the Joseph Rowntree Foundation release a study called the ‘Minimum Income
Standard’. It is worked out by asking the public what they believe is the minimum acceptable
standard of living in this country. It involves people being able to afford not just the very
essentials, but to be able to afford the occasional night out with friends and family, have a
hobby or interest and be able to take a holiday. They then work out what your minimum
household income would need to be to be able to afford these things. In short, it is about what
you can live on, not just survive on.
You can get the latest figures at www.jrf.org.uk/mis and they have an online calculator that tells
people if they are earning enough to meet the minimum income standard, or how much they are
short by at www.minimumincome.org.uk/
Does everyone get at least the real Living Wage?
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The Living Wage is calculated by the Living Wage Foundation, turning a minimum income
standard into an hourly rate. The Living Wage hourly rate is higher than the National Minimum
Wage. There have been a number of successful campaigns in recent years to get public
organisations, such as local councils, and private companies, to pay their employees at least
the Living Wage and to ensure contractors follow this practice also. If your hourly pay rates are
not at least the Living Wage this can be a good pay campaign to begin – as well as arguing for a
general uprating in pay for all. Increasing the pay for those at the lower end of the pay spine
can make an enormous difference to people’s quality of life.
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>
You can find the latest Living Wage rate at www.livingwage.org.uk/calculation
>
You can find the latest National Minimum Wage Rates at www.gov.uk/national-minimum-wagerates
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Please note that the Living Wage, as calculated by the Living Wage Foundation, is what should
be referred to. The government has introduced what it is calling a ‘National Living Wage’ but it
is in fact an additional age criteria in the National Minimum Wage (NMW), introducing a slightly
higher NMW rate for those aged 25 years and older. This rate is lower than the Living Wage as
calculated by the Living Wage Foundation.
How do they compare between men and women?
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Over 40 years after the Equal Pay Act was introduced women are still paid less than men on
average. This difference, 19% in 2014, exists because jobs traditionally done by women tend
to be undervalued (and so paid less), more women work part time, and women face extra
obstacles in progressing their career as they continue to shoulder more caring responsibilities,
and of course there remains some outright discrimination. For all these reasons it is important
your employer regularly conducts an Equal Pay Audit and commits to acting on the findings to
ensure work of equal value is rewarded with equal pay. Your pay claim is a good opportunity to
raise this.
>
You can find more information on how to carry out an Equal Pay Audit in the Equality Reps toolkit,
at www.unitetheunion.org/equalities
>
The Equality and Human Rights Commission also have their own Equal Pay Audit toolkit at
www.bit.ly/EHRCequalpayaudit
Gathering information about your employer
Having an understanding of the organisation you work for is crucial and much of the information
you need is in the heads of the members you represent – it is yet another reason why it is so
important to engage people in the building of their pay claim as soon as possible, However, you
will also need a degree of financial information. This would include turnover, operating profit, net
profit, net assets, number of people employed, what Directors and Executives are paid (as
mentioned above).
>
You can download a guide to understanding company accounts at www.unitetheunion.org/guides
>
For larger organisations some of this information will be available from its own website, press
releases and any annual reports. You can also contact the Unite Research Department for help in
obtaining this information, as long as proper notice is given. Email
[email protected]
As background, it can be useful to know there is a legal requirement for employers to provide
information to recognised trade unions so that they can properly negotiate on behalf of members.
This is set out in the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992. It places a general
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duty on employers who recognise a trade union to disclose information that enables the union to
properly engage in collective bargaining on behalf of its members on those areas where it is
recognised, as requested by a representative of the union.
While the Act itself doesn’t set out exactly what information an employer has to provide, the ACAS
Code of Practice on ‘Disclosure of Information to Trade Unions for Collective Bargaining’ gives the
following examples of what is relevant.
>
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You can download the full Code of Practice from the ACAS website at the following link:
http://bit.ly/DisclosureofInfoTU
Pay and Benefits
This includes the pay structure and how it operates, information on Job Evaluation schemes
and what their grading criteria is, getting a breakdown of basic salary, earnings, and hours by
work-groups, departments, grades, location, gender and ethnicity. You may also want to ask if
they collect information on disability. Other information you may want are a breakdown of
basic salary, and additional payments – such as overtime, unsocial hours payments, driving
premiums and so on – as well as total pay bill and details of any fringe benefits or non-wage
labour costs.
Terms and Conditions
This could include leave entitlements (for example, holiday, parental and any ‘Time Off In Lieu’
agreements), policies on recruitment, redeployment, redundancy, health, wellbeing and safety,
equality in the workplace and training.
Workforce
The numbers employed by grade, department, age, gender and ethnicity, staff turnover,
absentee rates, numbers of temporary and agency staff, apprentices, planned changes in work
methods or organisation.
Performance
This could include information on productivity and efficiency, savings from increased
productivity, return on capital invested.
Financial
This could include cost structures, gross and net profits, sources of earnings and revenue
streams, turnover, how profits are allocated, projected financial plans and loans.
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Remember you will need to factor in sending this request to your employer and requesting their
response within a reasonable time frame into your timeline for deciding your pay claim.
When interpreting this information you may find the following useful;
>
Unite guide ‘Company accounts and how to use them’, www.unitetheunion.org/guides
>
Unite Equality Rep toolkit has information on how to analyse workforce numbers and equal pay
audits in your workplace, www.unitetheunion.org/equalities
You can also get some information from;
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Freedom of Information (FOI) request – if you work in the public sector
Public sector organisations, such as local authorities, have to publish their accounts on their
website. You may also want to consider making a Freedom of Information request. It can be
made to any public authority and it is simple to do (though some caveats and exemptions
apply to what information they have to provide). You just have to clearly set out in writing what
information you would like – and send it by letter or email to the relevant authority. They have
20 working days to respond to your request.
>
Find out more about making an FOI from the Information Commissioner www.ico.org.uk
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The Charity Commission – if you work for a charity
•
All charities have to register their accounts with the charity commission and they are publically
available. You can access this at www.charitycommission.gov.uk
Unite Research Department
If you are experiencing difficulty in gaining access to your company’s accounts you can get in
touch with the Unite Research Department at [email protected].
Engaging your members
It is up to workplace representatives to ensure that members are consulted and feel involved in their
pay claim. This can be done through meetings, but also emails, newsletters, and posters and stickers if
needed as your pay claim develops. Remember to communicate regularly about how the pay claim is
developing the timeline for negotiations and feedback on the negotiations as they progress. Even if
nothing is really happening, it can be better to tell people this than simply saying nothing.
Your employer may ask you not to communicate separately, and sign up to joint communications
only throughout the negotiations. While joint communications should be done wherever possible
you should always be able to communicate independently with your members as well.
If there is more than one trade union in a workplace, you may want to ensure that all trade union
communications are jointly agreed – this means that every member is receiving the same message.
This unity is important when managing a pay claim, negotiations and campaigning.
There are lots of free to use campaign and communication tools available online. For example, set
up an online questionnaire and send it to your members to complete, asking them what they think
is important to include in the pay claim. Some example questions that you might think about
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asking are below. Your list will depend on the issues in your workplace, but remember to keep the
survey quite short for maximum participation and include a couple of questions asking people for
their name, department, job title and other pieces of information needed to keep your membership
list up to date. You may also want to reassure people that their responses will be kept confidential.
>
You can use www.surveymonkey.com<http://www.surveymonkey.com> to carry out an online
survey of members
Example survey for ‘A Company’ pay claim
Your union is preparing the latest pay claim for ‘A Company’ to improve our pay and working
conditions. But this can only be done with your help and support. This survey is an essential
element of our preparation, letting us know what the most important issues for us to concentrate
on when negotiating pay and working conditions with ‘A Company’. Please take the time to
complete the below questions and, if you can, also come along to the meeting on [date and time]
at [venue] where we will be discussing the results and what should be in our pay claim.
1. How would you rate your financial situation now compared to last year?
a) A lot better
b) Better
c) About the same
d) Worse
e) A lot worse
2) Alongside pay, what other working conditions would you most like to see improvements in?
a) Family friendly/flexible working
Training opportunities and career
development
b) Holiday entitlement
c) Working time
d) Shift patterns/notice of shifts
e) Health, Safety and wellbeing at work
3) Please leave any comments below about other issues you feel should be in the pay claim.
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Negotiating your pay claim
Once different sources of information have been pulled together and you have had feedback from
members about what they would like to see in their pay claim to campaign and organise around,
and a decision has been made about what to ask for, you may want to revisit the questions you
asked at the start of the process when beginning to plan out your pay claim. Make sure there aren’t
any big ‘gaps’ in your strategy or the information you have gathered together.
How it is written up into a claim is up to each negotiating team – it can be a detailed document
setting out the wider arguments behind the main ‘asks’ or simple letter with bullet points, stating
the main ‘asks’ and a couple of keys facts and figures to support these. Decide if you are going to
send the claim in advance of any meeting to give management the opportunity to study the claim
in depth, or present it at the meeting itself.
Once members have decided what should be the main ‘asks’ of the pay claim you should think
about what information will be useful in addition to what you have already collected, for example
costing your claim is important. Costing out what you think your pay claim will cost gives
negotiators a greater understanding of how the claim might be adjusted during the negotiations
and enables you to be able to counter any wild arguments from management on the costs and
affordability of the claim. You might not want to disclose your costings to management – but it can
be useful for you to have to hand during the negotiating process.
You should have the relevant information to calculate the cost, such as; current pay bill, number of
employees, costs of items covered by the claim (such as basic pay, or sick pay or others), proportion
of pay bill to total operational costs, turnover figures and operating profit.
Once the negotiating team have met with management you must report back to members and
communicate with people about what is taking place. It is crucial that people remain informed and
feel part of what is happening – this is everyone’s pay claim and their working conditions.
Once negotiations have reached completion there will need to be a decision by the negotiating
team and/or branch officers about what to do. Is it an acceptable offer? Can it be put out to the
membership with an offer to accept? Or is it not an acceptable offer? Should the offer be put to the
membership with no recommendation from the union or with a recommendation to reject? If you
have kept people informed, and have kept collecting feedback in different ways and thought about
how to campaign and organise during the negotiating process around your pay claim then it will
make these final steps easier.
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Campaigning for your pay claim
Being part of a trade union like Unite means you and your colleagues organising together to make
things better at work by having a say on things that matter, like your pay, hours and other work
conditions. Organising together as part of a trade union also means that you can make sure you can
enforce your rights at work and make them matter.
Remember – what we have outlined above is the legal minimum, but many people enjoy much
better working conditions than the minimum. In trade union organised workplaces people are paid
more, have fewer serious accidents and better flexible working and equality policies than where
people are not organised in a trade union.
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Campaigning and organising at work is how you get decent work, with social media and online
lobbying tools being an important part of building awareness around campaigns. If you are a
member you can get advice and ideas in our Guide to Campaigning and Guide to Web
Campaigning at www.unitetheunion.org/guides
You should be aware of the potential problems and risks in talking about your employer in
public on social media – read the TUC online guidance at https://worksmart.org.uk/workrights/discipline-and-policies/social-media
If you’re not already a member of a trade union – join Unite online at
www.unitetheunion.org/join
By campaigning together we can win the 5 things that make decent work for all!
To find out more about our decent work for all campaign visit
www.unitetheunion.org/decentwork4all .
Find us on Facebook (decent work 4 all),
follow us on Twitter (@decentwork4all).
If you want to find out more about actions taking place in your region please email us at:
[email protected] or visit www.unitetheunion.org/decentwork4all
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