Tory MPs advised how to avoid paying minimum wage

[tryingreallytrying]

www.politics.co.uk/news/2014/02/14/tory-mps-advised-how-to-avoid-paying-minimum-wage

"The Conservative Party have been accused of hypocrisy after backing plans to raise the minimum wage while sending out advice to its MPs on how to avoid paying it.

Tory MPs were sent a two-page memo instructing them to replace words like "worker" and "intern" in advertisements with "campaign volunteer" instead.

They were also told to avoid paying regular expenses to their interns as this would be "likely to give the volunteer the right to the minimum wage".

It instructs MPs to replace phrases like "you will be expected to…" with "The kind of activities it would be great to get some help with include…" in any job descriptions.

The memo, leaked to the website Graduate Fog has been revealed following the chancellor George Osborne's decision to back plans for a significant rise in the minimum wage. "

Disgusting :( but not too surprising.

I went to the Labour website expecting to find the same thing, but they don't do interns and apparently pay the Living Wage not the Minimum wage for employees.

In most things I think they are all as bad, but apparently not here.

They do have a thing to sign up to volunteer so perhaps that is similar, but it doesn't give details.

What's the difference between living wage and minimum wage?

Minimum wage is the minimum you're legally allowed to pay per hour. Living Wage is the amount that, as an hourly wage for a full working week, you need to meet basic living expenses. One is set by law, the other is calculated using data from the real economy.