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ETI NGO and trade union members, backed by ETI member companies, helped win amendments to the UK's National Minimum Wage Regulations (1999). This strengthened the entitlement of homeworkers and other piece-rate workers to the UK minimum wage.
Up to a million homeworkers in the UK work help produce, package, assemble or process a diverse range of products, from clothes, shoes and electrical components to gifts and greetings cards. Evidence from a variety of sources, including the former National Group on Homeworking and the TUC, contributed to a picture of exploitation and marginalisation.
In 2002, ETI members investigating wages paid to homeworkers making Christmas crackers in south Wales discovered that many were receiving shockingly low rates of pay - in some cases as little as £1.50 an hour.
One of the reasons for such low wages was that government regulations in place at the time, which were known as the ‘four fifths rule' and originally intended to protect slower-piece workers, had the effect of allowing employers to pay only 80 percent of the national minimum wage.
Between 2002 and 2004, NGOs representing homeworkers and the TUC, supported by the ETI UK Homeworker Group, lobbied the then Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) to introduce a fairer system for piece rate workers, also urging that statutory employment rights be conferred on UK homeworkers.
In 2004, the DTI agreed to amend the National Minimum Wage Regulations to clarify their application to homeworkers, and phased in a new statutory system for setting piece-rates of homeworkers and factory workers alike, through an accredited work measurement system.
The support of ETI member retailers was a significant factor in the amendment and improvement of the National Minimum Wage Regulations, which represented a significant advance for homeworkers throughout the UK.