‘Young workers cannot afford to wait’

When Labour entered government it did so on a promise to working people: that work would pay and that fairness would be restored to Britain’s labour market. Among those commitments was a pledge to end the discriminatory wage bands that see younger workers paid less simply because of their age, not because of the value of the work they do.

Today, that promise remains unfulfilled.

The government insists it remains committed to abolishing age-related minimum wage rates, but ministers have now conceded there is no timetable for delivering that commitment. For millions of young workers facing soaring rents, expensive transport costs and stubbornly high household bills, delay is a problem. 

Young workers are living through the same cost-of-living crisis as everyone else. Their landlords do not offer age-related rents. Their energy suppliers do not offer age-related bills. Their supermarkets do not offer age-related food prices.

So why should they receive age-related wages?

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The principle is simple. If two workers are doing the same job, for the same employer, to the same standard, they should receive the same rate of pay.  

My union, the Transport Salaried Staffs Association have long argued that age-based wage discrimination belongs in the past. Public support for ending these wage bands is substantial and organisations representing workers and students have repeatedly called for their abolition.

What makes the delay particularly difficult to understand is that other countries manage perfectly well without treating young workers as second-class participants in the labour market. Across much of northern Europe, younger workers benefit from stronger wage protections, better housing support, affordable public transport and labour market policies designed to help them establish independent lives.

Britain should be learning from that example.

Instead, young people increasingly face a future where they are expected to accept lower wages, higher housing costs and a later retirement age than previous generations. Meanwhile, pensioners continue to benefit from the protection of the triple lock and a range of concessions built up over decades.

That is not an argument against pensioners. Older people deserve security and dignity in retirement. The trade union movement fought for many of those gains and should defend them.

But it does raise an obvious question. Why is it acceptable to protect older generations from economic hardship while asking younger generations to wait patiently for basic fairness?

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The contrast is often stark. In many parts of the country retired people receive free bus travel while young workers commuting to low-paid jobs face ever-rising transport costs. There is something perverse about a system that subsidises those who no longer need to travel for work while offering limited support to those who must travel every day simply to earn a living.

The answer should never be to take rights away from pensioners. It should be to extend fairness to younger workers as well.

Indeed, if the government is serious about thinking differently, it should be willing to challenge long-standing assumptions about work and retirement altogether. Future generations may not follow the same life pattern as their grandparents. The idea of taking periods of retirement, education or sabbatical earlier in life before returning to work later could become one of the most transformative social reforms of the coming decades. But such conversations are impossible if young people cannot even afford today’s bills.

Labour has delivered important employment reforms through the Employment Rights Act, strengthening protections around sick pay, insecure work and workplace rights. Those achievements matter and should be defended, particularly as Reform UK has openly discussed repealing the legislation if given the opportunity.

Yet governments are judged not only by what they have done but by what remains undone.

For young workers, the abolition of discriminatory wage bands remains unfinished business. Labour’s manifesto promised a genuine living wage and an end to age-based pay discrimination. 

Those commitments should not be pushed into the long grass of a future parliament.

Trust in politics is fragile. Telling voters to support Labour simply because the alternative may be worse is not a sufficient argument. Young workers need a positive reason to believe politics can improve their lives. They need to see tangible progress now.

So when the Prime Minister says he is listening, these are precisely the voices he should hear. Young workers cannot postpone their rent. They cannot delay inflation. They cannot put their lives on hold while the government considers its options.

The promise was made. The need is urgent. The time to act is now.

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