ATL

ATL comment on pay rates for young people

14 June 2012

Responding to the government's remit to the Low Pay Commission, Martin Freedman, head of pay, conditions and pensions at the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL), said:

"It is risible that with youth unemployment in the UK running at 25%, the government's only proposal to help young people into work is to freeze their pay. Yet there is no evidence that low pay encourages employers to take on more young people.

"The government appears to believe that a low wage economy promotes economic growth when evidence shows that the opposite is the case. Young people in the UK are rapidly becoming the scapegoats of the recession faced with harsh choices between unpaid internships, pay of under £5 an hour while they are under 20, or being forced into work experience to avoid losing their benefits."

Notes to editors

1. The Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) is an independent, registered trade union and professional association, representing approximately 160,000 teachers, headteachers, lecturers and support staff in maintained and independent nurseries, schools, sixth form, tertiary and further education colleges in the United Kingdom.

2. ATL exists to help members, as their careers develop, through first rate research, advice, information and legal advice.

3. ATL is affiliated to the Trades Union Congress (TUC), Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU), European Trade Union Committee for Education (ETUCE) and Education International (EI). ATL is not affiliated to any political party and seeks to work constructively with all the main political parties.