The yearly increases on the minimum wage always come with an air of confrontation. As announced by the Low Pay Commission, 2011 will see an increase of 15p, raising the minimum wage to £6.08 per hour.
As stated on their report, “particular groups of workers (women, disabled people, ethnic minorities, migrants and those with no qualifications) are more likely to be in minimum wage jobs”. It is clear how this affects the cleaning industry directly, with 23% of its jobs in 2010 getting paid at the minimum rate (at that time £5.93), where most of their workers come from these particular groups.
London is another story. Although minimum wage jobs account for 2% of all jobs in London, the London Living Wage has been increased this year 45%, leaving it at £8.30 per hour. The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, considered this a positive move to reduce poverty levels in the capital. There are already more than 100 employers in London that have signed up to the London Living wage, a payment that it is consider the minimum to cover all needs of a worker.
The Living Wage Foundation, which has been battling to extend the London Living Wage to all employers across the capital, welcome this increase although considers there are still hundreds of thousands of Londoners in what it is called “working poverty”.
It is a delicate matter, specially on this current climate of uncertainty that our economy is going through. If you are interested in getting more information, here is the link to the Low Pay Commission report http://www.lowpay.gov.uk/lowpay/report/pdf/Revised_Report_PDF_with_April_date.PDF
Let us know your thoughts.
Does anyone know of a domestic cleaning firm in London that guarantees to pay the London Living wage (as well as holiday pay & sickness pay etc)? I need to get a cleaner as my boyfriend and I both work work long hours in fulltime jobs, but would like to know that the person cleaning our house is getting a decent wage.
Hi Eleanor, thanks for the comment! Most of the domestic cleaning agencies in London work with self employed cleaners; this means that you, as a client, can actually make the decision to pay them the London Living wage if you wish. The agency will put a minimum hourly payment to the cleaner that needs to be met by all the clients, but this doesn’t mean that the client cannot pay more to the cleaner if they wish to. In regards to holiday and sickness pay I can only talk from the experience here at Amy Cleaning; we do have several clients that pay the cleaning lady for these, so it is something that you can actually do. You can also search for a domestic cleaning agency that employs the cleaners directly, meaning that they will get paid for holiday time; these agencies usually have a salary to the cleaner of about £7 p/h.
I agree with admin he say right, if client need full service he also good for service pay.