smallbusiness.co.uk: Helping your business think big

The Trades Union Congress (TUC) is advising the government to ignore calls from companies to freeze the minimum wage.

According to the group, it is affordable and necessary for the Low Pay Commission to increase the national minimum wage, despite the business community claiming the level needs to be maintained in light of the current economic downturn.

The TUC suggests that a pay rise of 20p per hour would only increase the UK pay bill by 0.06 per cent of its current value and points out that the majority of workers' wages continued to go up during past recessions.

Brendan Barber, TUC general secretary, comments: 'The Low Pay Commission should robustly reject employer scare-mongering and recommend the highest minimum wage increases that can be sustained.'

In addition, he claims the current recession is due to the damage to the financial system by 'very highly paid people' and says it is unfair for low paid employees to suffer unnecessarily.

Research consultancy Incomes Data Services recently claimed that one in ten companies are freezing their annual pay rises in an attempt to cut costs, while more are delaying decisions on wage reviews.