YWCA England & Wales

News

Categories: jobs and work, money and debt, NEETs, poverty
Tuesday, 16 December 2008
A review of the Low Pay meeting by Kimberley Tew

Young women meet with Low Pay commissioners

"We want to work" is just one of the messages given to senior commissioners when young women from YWCA visited the Low Pay Commission on Tuesday 11 December.

Joined by YWCA chief executive Sarah Payne and director of policy and participation Sally Copley, young women from centres in London West, Truro, Wolverhampton and West Kent shared their personal experiences of just how difficult life can be for low paid workers and challenged common stereotypes about young people’s attitudes to work.

Commissioners Frances O’Grady and Susan Anderson heard about young mums desperate to get back in to the workplace but finding obstacles in their way, a lack of apprenticeships for young people and even exploitation of apprentices forced to work without pay to gain experience. Hope, from West Kent told how she has to work four days a week as an unpaid apprentice in a barber shop as part of her college course. Despite this, the college is unwilling to pay education maintenance allowance (EMA) as she only spends one day a week in class.

Stacey, a young mum from London West who has a wealth of work experience, spoke of how she is prepared to take any role just to get back to the workplace but is finding obstacles at the job centre. A lack of suitable work or training opportunities and staff who do not listen to her needs were just some of the problems she has encountered.

The young women spoke about how the national minimum wage affects young people. They maintain that bread and butter costs no less for young people so they should not be paid any less. The stories the young women told challenged common assumptions that young people have financial support from parents and that they lack skills.

Following the meeting, the commissioners reported to Sarah that the group was the best they had met so far. Throughout the meeting they seemed to be shocked by the stories they were hearing and were eager to learn more.

As one of the young women attending the meeting, (I am a former Truro volunteer), I can report on behalf of the group that the meeting was a great success.

We all felt that the commissioners listened to what we had to say and enjoyed the opportunity to tell people with real influence exactly what life is like for those living on a low income and the changes which would help us.

We asked for simple and achievable things such as more apprenticeship opportunities, better pay and more support to get back in to work.

We hope that the Low Pay Commission’s report can help make these changes which would make a huge difference for young women like ourselves who want a better future and the chance to escape poverty while doing something we enjoy.

Everybody left feeling inspired to do more, with Jude from Wolverhampton declaring, “Next up is Gordon Brown!”