NEXT employs 50,000 workers at over five hundred sores, call centres and warehouses in the UK and Ireland and, despite a 12% increase in annual profits to £695million, expected to rise to £770million in its next accounts, pays rubbish wages.
The retail company's rate is £6.70 per hour to those 21 and over, and £5.84 to those aged 18 to 20, with many staff employed for 12.5 hours per week or less in some stores. Some may get a bonus which the company claim can amount to an additional 4% to 7% on hourly rates but it still leaves the majority of staff taking home well below the Living Wage of £7.85 per hour (£9.20 per hour in London). And way less than the GMB Congress recommended rate of £10 per hour.
Now the trade union has sponsored the second leg of the current tour by Paul Heaton and former Beautiful South singer Jacqui Abbott, making concert goers aware of the NEXT staff's plight.
"GMB is calling on a very profitable NEXT to pay wages and enough hours of work for people to live on" says Mick Rix, GMB National Officer for retail staff "GMB members tell us that in their experience you need at least £10 an hour and a full working week to have a decent life free from benefits and tax credits.
"Less than £10 an hour means just existing not living. It means a life of isolation, unable to socialise" he adds "It means a life of constant anxiety over paying bills and of borrowing from friends, family and pay day loan sharks just to make ends meet.
It is time NEXT made work pay. If this was done, staff would not need their meagre wages to be topped up by taxpayers with family tax credits and housing benefits so as to make ends meet."
As well as sponsoring the concerts, GMB will be protesting outside NEXT stores in Cardiff, Wolverhampton, Brighton and Nottingham, and handing NEXT managers ASBOs, `because it is an employer that does not face up to its social responsibilities'.
Instead of paying staff a decent wage, £300million of NEXT profits was paid to shareholders.
"We're proud to support the GMB campaign to give people a Living Wage" says Paul Heaton "Times are really hard for working people at the moment and, as both Jacqui and I started our working lives in poorly paid and undervalued jobs, this campaign is particularly important to us. There are people in employment, working for companies that still make massive profits in these so called times of austerity and they're not receiving a fair or decent wage."
* Paul Heaton and Jacqui Abbott play the O2 Apollo in Manchester on 5th December - ticket details click here
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