by Peter Goddard
Yesterday’s Guardian featured the ‘shocking’ news that staff on P&O Cruises will not be paid tips directly, but will receive a bonus related to performance.
The headline for this story makes great hay from the staff in question being paid just 75p an hour. Below the line, the audience is outraged, with much Cameron-bashing and righteous left wing scorn denouncing these ‘slave wages’.
But if we actually read the article rather than simply scandalise ourselves with the headline, a more complex story emerges.
The staff in question hail from India and the Philippines, not the UK.
And they work on boats in international waters, not the UK.
So, non-British employees working in a non-British location are paid wages that, by British standards, are very low. This seems rather less scandalous.
Assuming the cruise company provides their staff with room and board (and this is just one of the relevant facts that the article does not provide), the value of the 75p an hour wage bears no relation to the buying power of that money in Europe and therefore tells us very little about how well or badly these workers are being treated.
