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Speaker 1: Bryan Bridge.

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Speaker 2: Unions in the opposition not happy with the government's new

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Speaker 2: rules for contracting companies that procure US work to Companies

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Speaker 2: will no longer have to pay the living wage for cleaning,

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Speaker 2: catering and security guards services, amongst a raft of other

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Speaker 2: changes that was announced this morning. Richard wagg starts with

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Speaker 2: the councilor Trade Unions.

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Speaker 1: Good evening, Thank you, Ron. Good to be back now.

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Speaker 2: The argument is some small businesses companies can't afford to

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Speaker 2: pay the living wage, so why should they miss out

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Speaker 2: on government contracts?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think that makes a lot of sense.

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Speaker 1: You see, what it is basically as a standard, and

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Speaker 1: everyone bidding for government contracts has to just basically meet

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Speaker 1: the same standard. So whatever the wage minimums are, or

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Speaker 1: indeed any other minimums, everyone has to has to meet them.

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Speaker 1: So there's no disadvantage to small, medium, or large businesses

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Speaker 1: there are in the same playing field. What this does, though,

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Speaker 1: is basically enable all of those providers contractors too basically

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Speaker 1: bid on minimum wages, and this is without standards we know,

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Speaker 1: or drive wages down.

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Speaker 2: But the thing is that the standard, the legal standard,

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Speaker 2: is the minimum wage, not the living wage, right, So

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Speaker 2: there is Now, there are perfectly legitimate businesses out there

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Speaker 2: paying the minimum wage who at the moment can't get

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Speaker 2: government contracts.

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Speaker 1: But as I said to you, when they go for

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Speaker 1: government contracts, they need to pay the same rates as

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Speaker 1: everybody else. They shouldn't be able to undercut them. And

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Speaker 1: that's the problem. But when these when these tenders, when

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Speaker 1: these things go to tenor what we'll see is that

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Speaker 1: the wage rates for kanas, for caterers, for security services

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Speaker 1: will all drop because of the competitive tendering process.

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Speaker 2: Might not every company can afford to pay the living wage.

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Speaker 2: They don't they set up like that, Smaller businesses can't

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Speaker 2: afford to do that. You'll end up with large companies

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Speaker 2: taking all the government contracts.

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Speaker 1: I don't think that's necessarily the case. I think small

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Speaker 1: businesses can be competitive. But basically what you're saying is

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Speaker 1: that they by allowing them to drop their wages, so

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Speaker 1: will larger businesses drop their wages to everybody will drop

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Speaker 1: their wages, and only winners will be you know, whoever's

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Speaker 1: paying for the overall cost, But it certainly won't be

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Speaker 1: the workers. The workers will be the losers in that

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Speaker 1: Program's exactly the same as the bus drivers, and that's

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Speaker 1: why we wanted to have fair pay agreements. Every time

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Speaker 1: councils put out bus services for tender, everyone who tended

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Speaker 1: on the minimum wage except the companies that had proper

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Speaker 1: agreements with their stuff, and they couldn't win tenders because

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Speaker 1: they were stuck on higher wages. And that's the problem.

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Speaker 1: They keep driving wages and conditions down with tendering.

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Speaker 2: Richard, appreciate your time this evening, Richard Wagstaff, the Council

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Speaker 2: of Trade Union's president.

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