Minimum wage for homeworkers

By HELEN LOVELESS, MAIL ON SUNDAY ENTERPRISE EDITOR
Updated:

 

UP TO 170,000 homeworkers could see their wages rise when new employment regulations are introduced later this year.

Typically homeworking jobs - which can include packing greeting cards, feeding strings into cloth products and assembling Christmas crackers - are very poorly paid.

But from October 2004, companies employing home- and 'pieceworkers' will have to pay at least the national minimum hourly wage, or the equivalent according to the number of hours a piece of work is estimated to take.

Employers will also have to give staff clear information about the rate they are expected to work at and their hourly wage.

From April 2005, companies will have to pay workers at a rate of 120% of the minimum wage for an agreed block of work, a move which should see thousands of workers receive another pay increase.

The changes were announced this week by Employment Relations minister Gerry Sutcliffe. He said: 'The National Minimum Wage is almost five years old and this is the latest step we are taknig to ensure everyone is paid fairly.

'This change to the law will be especially important to ethnic minority and women workers, who make up a large proportion of people who work at home.'

The announcement was welcomed by the National Group on Homeworking (NGH). Director Linda Devereux said: 'I am pleased the Government has taken up the concerns of homeworkers.

'The new regulations make it clearer for both homeworkers and their employers. We know compliance is a problem in this sector but these amendments should help ensure that homeworkers are finally able to receive the full level of the national minimum wage.'

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