UK richest family accused of ‘playing Scrooge’ over below real living wage workers’ pay
The UK’s richest family has been accused of “playing Scrooge” after allegations that they refused to pay all UK workers the “real living wage” while their own personal wealth swelled by £11.5bn in a single year.
A company majority-owned by the Hinduja family, which was named by the Sunday Times earlier this year as the wealthiest people in Britain, is refusing to offer its workers – who help run a crucial government service – an inflation-matching pay rise.
Some workers at Hinduja Global Services (HGS) – an outsourcing company used by the government to help run the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS), which checks potential employees’ criminal records – are paid as little as £9.75 an hour.
The rate is above the legal minimum of £9.50 for workers aged 23 and over, but is below the voluntary “real living wage” (RLW) overseen by the Living Wage Foundation charity. Calculated based on what people need to live on, the rate of the RLW, which is paid by thousands of companies on a voluntary basis, increased last month from £9.90 to £10.90 for workers outside London.
A company spokesperson said: “Any allegation that all the staff based in Liverpool are paid less than the living wage is incorrect.”
HGS, which is part of the Hinduja Group, in April of this year offered the workers a 3.25% pay rise. This is now far below the current rate of inflation, which is running at 9.9% and expected to climb even higher this month.
The workers who run the DBS’s contact centre and back-office functions in Liverpool said they had “had enough” and plan to walk out on strike between 17 and 29 October. It will be the third walkout since August.
The workers are demanding HGS commit to paying at least the £10.90 an hour real living wage, sick pay, an
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