The national minimum wage for over-25s is £7.50 an hour, while the London living wage is £10.20
WORKERS at Britain’s biggest Christmas fair are being exploited by ruthless bosses paying “slave wages”, an undercover Sun probe has found.
Stall bosses at Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park pay staff less than £5 an hour to work 12-hour shifts.
Illegal workers without proper employment documents were also able to get jobs without security checks or training.
Our reporter posed as a Russian with a student visa and had a basic English test.
She got a job on a stall run by the Manning’s Organisation, one of Britain’s biggest carnival firms.
She was paid £300 for a 60-hour week serving churros — Spanish doughnut sticks.
But three hours of training and three hours of cleaning after the park closed were unpaid, so it worked out at £4.54 per hour.
The national minimum wage for over-25s is £7.50 per hour. The London living wage is £10.20.
Job ads for the event say pay is between £9 and £12 per hour for a 35-hour week.
One former worker said: “I was disgusted by the pay they offered for the hours — it’s slave wages.”
The annual event in central London is run by PWR Events and The Royal Parks.
Celebs including X Factor boss Simon Cowell and his partner Lauren Silverman are among the two million annual visitors.
Winter Wonderland said contractors are required to carry out relevant checks, to comply with statutory obligations and to ensure staff welfare. They vowed to investigate.
Manning’s did not respond to requests to comment.
