This week the Living Wage Foundation announced that there are now over 1,000 employers in the UK who have signed up to the accreditation. Many of the companies that are signing up have big profits but relatively few low-paid workers. This makes them ‘low-hanging fruit’ as the cost of becoming accredited is marginal. Companies with greater numbers of low-paid workers are more resistant to the voluntary approach.
The employer numbers publicised to coincide with Living Wage Week consequently do not reflect a rapid rise in the number of employees being paid a living wage. Only 60,000 workers have pay linked to the living wage, the new rates of which are £7.85 nationally and £9.15. In London, 600,000 people were being paid below the London living wage in 2012 – up from 420,000 in 2007. Nationally, the number of people in the United Kingdom in work but living in poverty is also on the increase. Recent figures put this at 22 per cent of the workforce equivalent to over five million people nationally, up from 21 per cent last year.
Of all the politicians associated with the living wage, Boris Johnson appears to get the most kudos for being a ‘living wage champion’. Merely repeating that the London living wage is a good thing and that people should pay it if they can does not, however, make you a champion if you overseeing a steady rise in inequality and poverty pay. I have challenged Johnson repeatedly on his record on low pay and will continue to push him to prioritise delivery over spin.
Among the workers who have been asking for a living wage for living workers are the now famous cinema workers from the Ritzy in Brixton. Meeting them on their picket line and welcoming them to City Hall, I have been struck by the vibrant and enthusiastic nature of their approach – with pickets involving face painting for children, music and a festival atmosphere that suits Windrush Square in Brixton where the cinema is based and the creative industry in which they work.
Their energy caught the imagination of people in the local community and subsequently beyond. The dispute moved rapidly beyond a strike with a boycott, petitions, letters and considerable media attention. The combination eventually produced an offer from management that was accepted by staff, albeit one still below the London living wage. If consumer and shareholder pressure contributed to the resolution of the dispute, public outrage reflected in an article by Will Self, was also central to the withdrawal of the subsequent threat of redundancies following the ‘conclusion’ of the dispute. The Ritzy Living Wage campaign will continue until it achieves its goal.
Low-paid workers should not have to go on strike to get decent pay and they should not fear retribution if they do.
Last week the Curzon cinema chain announced it would pay staff in its six cinemas in London the London living wage. This is both right ethically and a good business decision. The one thing Picturehouse could do that would go some way towards restoring its reputation is to move rapidly to pay the living wage. BECTU now has a petition covering all Picturehouse cinemas and a grassroots petition is calling for the London living wage to be paid at the new Picturehouse in East Dulwich that has not yet opened its doors.
Tackling low pay is rightly being prioritised by the union movement. It now needs to be championed by all of us as consumers. Just as the councils that are delivering on the living wage are demonstrating political will in the face of diminishing budgets, we all need to show personal determination to ensure work pays for all. A meeting I convened on fair pay this week heard how frustrated campaigners are on the slow progress towards the living wage. We cannot expect Citizens UK or the living wage Foundation to deliver on their own – they have successfully raised the issue of a need for a living wage but are working against a rising tide of in-work poverty.
Some time ago when the practice of using tips to ‘top up’ pay to the level of the minimum wage was exposed, people started asking waiters if they got the service charge. We need a similar approach for the living wage campaign and need ethical consumer choice to do for the living wage campaign in the UK what it has done for fair trade internationally.
Politicians and political parties also have a role. As well as offering the promised incentives to employers and promised increase in the national minimum wage, Labour should go in to the next election with a pledge to low-paid workers. If the voluntary approach continues to fail to tackle poverty pay as spectacularly as it is currently, Labour should commit to phasing in a statutory living wage. There is, after all, no dignity in work if work does not pay.
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Fiona Twycross is economy spokesperson for the London assembly Labour group. She tweets @FionaTwycross
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