The hospitality industry has a high proportion of workers paid less than the UK national minimum wage.

The Trades Union Congress (TUC) has announced that 1.5 million workers in the UK are still being paid less than the national minimum wage (NMW).

Although last year £3.9 million was recovered from law-breaking bosses, the TUC estimates that hundreds of thousands of workers are still taking less money home than the law says they should be – nearly a decade after the NMW was introduced in April 1999.

In response to these findings of employers paying their adult staff less than £5.73 an hour, an updated guide to the TUC’s enforcement law has been published.

Enforcing the National Minimum Wage is the third edition of the guide, first published in 2001, and sets out how unions and advice workers can make sure all workers are earning the NMW.

TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said: “The Revenue and Customs teams responsible for enforcement are doing a good job and have already retrieved millions of pounds from employers failing to pay the minimum wage.”

He continued: “There must be no hiding place for rogue bosses. Our guide aims to make it easier for unions and advice agencies to root them out and ensure everyone gets the wage to which they are legally entitled.”

Workers being cheated out of the minimum wage are most likely to be in London, the North West and Merseyside, or the South East, and employed in hotels, bars and restaurants, retail or hairdressing.

In the construction industry, HM Revenue & Customs investigated 261 complaints against contractors accused of paying illegal rates last year.

One TUC case study tells the story of Jamal, a 32 year old, black-African migrant worker. He is paid £4.10 an hour as a casual construction worker, which is the higher rate for casual workers with Jamal’s employer. He is paid this rate because he has carpentry skills and qualifications, but says some of the casual workers are paid only £3.10 per hour.

Many migrant workers in food production and agriculture are also still paid less than the minimum wage. Complaints about gangmasters in the UK should be made to the Gangmasters Licensing Authority on 0845 602 5020.

To read the guide, click here.