‘Labour promised to make work pay. Now it must deliver for young people’

I’m sure many of us remember the first step we took on the road into working life. You rarely know where that road will lead. Like so many young people, at 18 I was working in retail. It was there, at Makro, that I first became a Usdaw workplace rep. Nearly thirty years on, I am proud to represent almost 370,000 members across retail and distribution as General Secretary.

Finding work as a teenager in 1990s Sunderland wasn’t easy. That’s why I believe so strongly that today’s young people deserve better, clearer opportunities to take that first step in their careers, whether in retail or any other industry. Young workers graft just as hard as anyone else. So why should they take home less pay at the end of the day than older colleagues doing the same job?

The Government made a promise to Make Work Pay. Its manifesto included a clear commitment to abolish discriminatory age bands, so all adults receive the same minimum wage. There must be no delay on this promise.

This is about ensuring every worker is paid a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work, regardless of their age. I think you’d struggle to find many people, inside or outside the labour movement, who disagree with that principle. 

The Government is right to look seriously at the root causes of youth underemployment through Alan Milburn’s Young People and Work Review. It’s only by understanding the causes that we can put the right support and solutions in place.

Trade unions bring deep, practical insight into how modern workplaces really function. We want to play our full part in helping this review deliver the best outcomes for young people and for the economy. But as things stand, there is no trade union representative on the Youth Guarantee Advisory Panel, an omission I have raised directly with the Secretary of State, Pat McFadden.

The challenge is significant, but the way to get more young people into work is not by offering them bad jobs, on lower pay, with fewer rights. We need genuine job creation that opens good opportunities to workers of all ages, alongside apprenticeships and education that equip young people with the skills they need. We also cannot ignore the possible impact of AI and automation on job opportunities for this and future generations.

READ MORE: ‘If Labour is serious about upskilling Britain, it must mobilise local businesses’

Sixteen-year-olds can join our armed forces, and soon they will be able to vote. message do we send when we tell these same young people that their work is worth up to £4.71 an hour less than the colleague standing beside them?

And if all of this sounds familiar, that’s because we’ve heard it all before. In 1998, the Conservatives and bad employers predicted disaster when Labour introduced the National Minimum Wage. They warned of mass unemployment and economic collapse. Instead, millions of workers were finally paid what they deserved.

Unions like mine want to see more jobs and more opportunities for young people. But paying them less is not the way to achieve that. We should value their work properly by investing in their futures—not consigning them to low pay and insecurity.

This is why it’s vital the Government gets the Employment Rights Act implementation right, including making sure everyone has a contract that reflects the hours they actually work.

This isn’t about giving everyone full-time hours. It is about ensuring contracts match the regular hours people already do. It won’t cost employers anything; it just requires a bit more organisation. 

For years, the labour market has favoured employers, with workers carrying the weight of ‘flexibility’. These reforms simply rebalance things. Many employers tell me they already offer this protection. The Act just makes them standard, so good employers aren’t undercut by bad ones.

Labour was elected on a promise to Make Work Pay for everyone. Now, together, let’s make sure we deliver it and work together on creating the good, fairly-paid, secure jobs that will give the next generation hope of a better future.

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