02/07/2015
Liz Kendall pledged to improve employment standards for care workers and create a “living wage society.”
Speaking before an event held in central London last June 25, Kendall bared her plans if she will be elected Labour Party’s leader and then become UK’s Prime Minister.
Kendall has been Labour MP for Leicester West since 2010 and has served as shadow minister for care and older people starting from 2011.
Distressed by reports highlighting the less than minimum wage earned by about 220,000 care workers who were not compensated for their travel time, Kendall said she asked experts in the field of social care to come up with plans to put an end to the unfair treatment of care workers. Those consulted by Kendall wereBaroness Denise Kingsmill who authored a report focusing on working conditions in the care sector, Nita Clarke (Employee Engagement Taskforce co-chairman and Involvement and Participation Association director), and Lewisham Mayor Steve Bullock.
Kendall also promised to expand the Low Pay Commission’s remit.
Currently, the commission is tasked to let national minimum wage. Kendall wants that scope of authority to include working hand in hand with unions and employers in order to discover means that would create wider and higher rate of salary to approximate living wage levels.
Kendall said:
“We must tackle the inequalities in power, wealth and opportunity that scar our country and hold us all back. That why today I’m pledging to move Britain to a living wage society, and that one of the first areas I will take action on as Labour leader is the scandal of low pay in social care.”
