Low Pay and Insecure Work
- Increase the Minimum Wage to the 'Living Wage'
- Restrict the exploitative use of zero-hours contracts
Jersey’s Minimum Wage is a poverty wage. A full-time worker on the Minimum Wage is not able to afford the essentials without having to claim benefits to make ends meet. Our lowest paid workers are worse off than their UK counterparts, due to our Minimum Wage having fallen behind theirs, and to make matters worse, our cost of living remains higher too.
Reform Jersey will end poverty pay by bringing the Minimum Wage up to the ‘Living Wage’. We will start by increasing the Minimum Wage to £10 an hour on 1st October and commit to matching it to the Living Wage soon after. We pledge to lodge the proposition to achieve this on the day that our successful candidates are sworn into office after the election. This will therefore be the first proposition that the new States Assembly will debate.
Whilst Reform Jersey States Members have secured some progress in the limitation of exploitative zero-hours contracts (such as the outlawing of ‘exclusivity clauses’) more must be done to prevent workers who face insecurity in work. We will introduce further restrictions on the exploitative use of zero-hours contracts and curb ‘gig economy’ practices to reduce insecurity at work.