Catherwood LibraryILR School

Britain?s Trade Union Congress (TUC) published a statement today calling for a twenty-two to twenty-nine percent increase in the national minimum wage from $6.28 to between $7.65 and $8.11. The push to raise the minimum wage is part of the British labor movement?s new focus on improving the pay and benefits of the lowest paid workers in the British economy (see WIT for Aug. 6, 2002). The TUC also called in its statement for eliminating the separate lower minimum wage standards for eighteen to twenty-one year-olds and giving them the same wage protections as older workers, and for the establishment of wage protections for sixteen and seventeen year-olds.