Many
homeworkers are being underpaid, often receiving less than £2.70 an hour, a
report by the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) finds.
EOC
chair Julie Mellor said that even under a proposed new system of calculating
their pay rates, half of the UK’s homeworkers could still be earning less than
the minimum wage.
According
to the study, as many as 70,000 homeworkers may not be receiving the minimum
wage even though they are entitled to the statutory rate.
Mellor
said new government proposals to change the way pay rates are set would help,
but would not solve the problem.
"Our
experience suggests that the vast majority of those who lose out will be women
and most of them will be ethnic minority women.
"This
exploitation should not be allowed to continue for years after the minimum wage
was put in place,” she said.
