Offer fair pay and put an end to tiers

Right now, in a school canteen near you, members of kitchen crews are preparing the same ingredients, serving the same dishes to the same sorts of children, then cleaning the same kinds of pots and pans - but at differing rates of pay. The chances are that a similar state of affairs persists among catering staff at your local general hospital.

The Government has yet to deliver on last year's promise to end the two-tier labour market that exists in the public sector. February's Government Workforce Code of Practice ensures that local government workers on the payroll of private contractors are now paid the same as their Government-salaried colleagues. But, for the moment, it does not extend to the millions of workers in health, higher education and other public services.

Dismiss such discrepancies as the inevitable by-product of free-market forces, if you like, but that's scant consolation for the many workers struggling to get by on lower salaries than the colleagues standing beside them.

So let's give Compass a pat on the back for demanding an end to this unsatisfactory state of affairs. Of course, Compass has its own commercial agenda. Declaring open support of legislation that, in any case, it has no power to halt is sure to spawn some good PR for the company, and will lay a firm foundation for future recruitment drives. Nevertheless, a good deed is a good deed. Other contractors are sure to follow.

Even if you set aside the basic human right to a fair day's wage for a fair day's work, there are two good reasons for an end to the public sector's two-tier salary system.

First, there is the issue of quality of service to consider. Salary disparities are bound to lead to a lessening of care, with schoolchildren, hospital patients and other public sector customers the losers.

There is also the small matter of the continuing skills shortage. Hospitality is a vocational industry, and must fight hard to attract young entrants from schools and colleges. Any perception that it is not offering competitive pay and conditions is sure to make this fight harder. Compass rightly appreciates that people are its "lifeblood", and that only by valuing its current staff can it hope to attract fresh generations of recruits.

The introduction of a minimum wage increase yesterday (1 October) will further bar companies from underpinning their competitiveness by driving down the rates of pay they offer employees. Now, the Government must come down hard on the sharp practices of those contractors which make a profit by offering abysmal wages to illegal immigrants.

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