The National Minimum Wage is currently set at £6.70 per hour for anyone over 21, which will go up to £7.20 (for over 25s) in 2016. This is calculated by the Low Pay Commission and is the lowest amount any UK employee can legally be paid per hour. The Living Wage is a term defined and set by the Living Wage Foundation and is calculated according to the real cost of living, including food, fuel, childcare and more. This amount is determined by independent academics. The UK Living Wage is currently set at £8.25 per hour nationally and £9.40 per hour in London. (in recognition of the fact that the cost of living is higher in London). Across the UK, one in five working people currently earns less than the Living Wage. While the introduction of the National Minimum Wage has been almost universally acknowledged as a significant step forward for the lowest paid in society, it still falls way short of the amount people actually need to live on. The chancellor has announced that the National Minimum Wage is due to rise to £7.20 per hour for over 25s in 2016, while at the same time, in a deceitful sleight of hand, he is attempting to rebrand this as the "National Living Wage". While that 50p per hour increase over the current National Minimum Wage will be welcomed by the several million people who are currently paid the National Minimum Wage, it will still be £1.05 per hour less than the UK Living Wage and £2.20 per hour less than the London Living Wage. If the Government were proposing to increase the National Minimum Wage to the amounts the Living Wage Foundation have deemed to be what people actually need to live on, then they would be entitled to re-name it as a "National Living Wage", but if not, then they have no right to hijack the term Living Wage and it should instead be referred to as what it actually is - an increased National Minimum Wage. It seems they are attempting to deliberately muddy the waters and steal the clothes of the true Living Wage, in order to deceive the public into thinking the increased National Minimum Wage will be an amount people can live on, when that is not the case. This petition urges the heads of news at BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and Sky, as well as the editors of national newspapers, to recognise their responsibility to the British public to communicate accurately and transparently and so to only use the term "increased National Minimum Wage", as that is what it is. We also expect news presenters, correspondents and columnists to challenge any attempts to use the misleading term "National Living Wage" and to explain to viewers and readers why that term is inaccurate and misleading and to explain what the true UK Living Wage and London Living Wage are and to make it clear that they are set by the Living Wage Foundation, as opposed to the National Minimum Wage, which is set by the Low Pay Commission. But why does it matter what it is called? It matters because Britain remains an extremely unequal society, in which there are millions of people in fuel poverty and an increasing number reliant upon food banks for basic necessities. However an increasing number of these people are in work, yet they are not paid enough to sustain their basic needs. A growing number of employers are voluntarily opting to pay all their staff at least the true UK Living Wage and this is to be commended - as they really are ensuring their employees are paid enough to live on and they should be recognised for doing so. It may well seem like a semantic and technical argument, but the widespread mis-use of the term "National Living Wage" is intentionally misleading and is giving people the false impression that once it is introduced, every employee will be paid an amount they can live on, when in reality there will still be several million of the lowest paid people who will welcome the 50p per hour pay rise, but who will be receiving an increased National Minimum Wage, not a National Living Wage. The more people sign this petition, the more difficult news organisations will find it to ignore this issue and the more likely it will be that we can stop the misleading misuse of an important and meaningful term, which affects millions of the lowest paid workers in Britain. Thank you for your support and please forward this to people you know.

Yesterday, our MPs debated the Trade Union Bill again. And the Government won. The Bill passed with 305 votes for, and 271 against. This is devastating news - but the fight goes on. As the debate moves to the House of Lords, we need to highlight the attack on democracy that is contained in the Bill. The Conservative party want to be in power for a generation, and are fixing the system to make that happen. They’re making it harder to register to vote, and are redrawing the Parliamentary map in a way that benefits them. The Bill is seeking to impose limits on minimum returns and vote percentages of total membership, for those seeking to take industrial action. This reeks of rank hypocrisy from a Government who only polled just less than 25% of the electorate, yet they deem that a clear mandate to continue with their ever more punitive and regressive policy making But that’s not all. Hidden in the Trade Union Bill is a clause that is deliberately designed to restrict trade unions supporting the Labour Party financially - while doing nothing to limit the hedge funds and millionaires that support the Tories. Another clear case of "Do as we say, Not as we do!"

Like many other higher education institutions in Great Britain, the Royal College of Music (RCM) outsources its cleaning services. The outsourced employees are faced with inadequate employment terms and the institution refuses responsibility for their conditions, unlike those employed by the college directly. The cleaners at RCM, employed by Ocean Integrated Services, receive no occupational sick pay, the statutory minimum holiday as well as meagre employer pension contributions. Our new campaign season sets out to build upon the successes last year’s successful 3 Cosas Campaign at the central University of London and to bring further its demands for reasonable sick pay, holidays and pensions to outsourced workers at the Royal College of Music .

Currently to be entitled to employment rights (tribunals etc) you need to be employed by the same company for 2 yrs. This means that if for whatever reason you are unfairly dismissed within those first 2 yrs of service you are not entitled to employment rights, including tribunals, which in essence means the company has no consequences for unfair dismissals etc Often people are losing their jobs just before their 2 yrs is up, meaning they have nothing to fight back with (even with a union!) and companies get away with it.

It is important for people to not confuse the UK's minimum wage with the LIVING WAGE. The minimum wage SHOULD be a living wage.. but it is not. The 'National Minimum Wage' will still be far lower than the LIVING WAGE when it is raised by the government in 2016, yet it is being re-branded as though it is a living wage. The living wage has been researched for many years and exists to highlight what people actually need to be paid in order to have a better standard of living. The Proposed 'National Living Wage' is not a living wage! Especially when working people will face tax credit cuts next year.

this is important because people who come out of work/trying to get back into work can not afford the price of these tickets run by cpcs . employers and agencies carry advertisements saying must have cpcs cards only

This matters because the general public have a right to know if access to employment and/or decision making bodies in the media are open only to a narrow section of society, which either wilfully or innocently perpetuates itself within these occupations and other forms of participation in media output and decision making to the detriment of our wider society.

Learning is THE most important of activities. Education costs money. Why should money be wasted to make private individuals (the directors of the agencies) rich?

For the health and well being of all staff, also properly paid for the actual hours they work, when salaried they are getting well below the minimum wage Chefs have to work 12/16 hours a day and especially if they are Michelin starred, lack of sleep , lack of breaks and daily pressures have an extreme detrimental effect on them with lots of them turning to supplements (caffeine red bull pro plus) but also what is very common is amphetamines. This year I was made aware of a famous chef near London, where staff started at 6 and finished at 12/1. Some staff were even taking some of the veg up to their rooms to prep for the morning. There seems to be no rules governing hours and conditions in this industry. In France because of the unions chefs are only allowed to work 8 hours a day

Some ex pat are living in misery because of this ruling.

There is currently no safe way to cycle between Totnes and Newton Abbot. The A381 is the only route over the river Dart and it is simply too dangerous for cyclists. Access to footbridge, the only other bridge over the river, would enable cyclists and walkers to travel safely out of Totnes to the north east and west. This would ease congestion and improve the health and wellbeing of the residents of Totnes and Newton Abbot and all the villages that lie between. In addition, this route would serve to complete the missing link in the National Cycle Network. The route in question is called NCN2 and runs from Dover to St Austell. The missing link lies between Totnes and Newton Abbot. However, Devon County Council want to sign off an alternative route that bypasses Totnes altogether. We believe that this is a huge missed opportunity as it will have a negative impact on the town in the form of lost revenue from cycle tourism. Please help support our campaign by asking Devon Council not to bypass our town but to directly liaise with South Devon Railway to appease their concerns regarding security. The bridge was part funded by public money and is a valuable asset to Totnes and its transport infrastructure. However, it is only being used exclusively for customers of the railway and not for the overall benefit of the community. We need the council to help us convince the railway that we can secure their important tourist attraction and that opening up access to the bridge would actually benefit their business going forward. We have had discussions with both South West Water and the only private landowner involved, and neither have any serious objections to our proposal. Our petition has generated almost 3000 signatures, many with comments expressing the importance of the scheme to the local and wider community. What we are missing is support from Devon Council. We do not need another study, we do not need any more consultants, there are no other routes that offer value for money. Our proposal is a valid practical solution with many benefits to the local community in terms of congestion, health and tourism. Our proposal is backed by the community, Sustains, all the local schools, local businesses, local and regional MP's and is backed by South Hams District Council. We appreciate the cycle path will require an estimated £300,000 (although we believe this estimate to be excessive). We are happy to co-ordinate the funding process going forward, however this option will never come to fruition if we don't get agreement in the first place. So please Devon County Council - please don't sign off the National Cycle Network Route 2 so that it bypasses Totnes. Instead please get on side and help negotiate with the South Devon Railway to open up a public resource for the benefit of us all.

Between April 24 and May 14 2013, three young workers at Foxconn electronics factory in Zhengzhou, China, jumped from buildings to their deaths. 24 others have committed suicide since 2010 because of appalling conditions, such as being sacked if you speak at work, and ritual humiliations in front of hundreds of colleagues. Foxconn are making computers for Dell, Apple, Acer, HP and others. Computers for universities are made in factories like this. A new organisation, Electronics Watch, will work with public sector bodies and electronics workers, to investigate factories making our computers, and start to improve rights and working conditions. The Workers Rights Consortium is a similar body with a focus on the clothing industry.