We have been championing the living wage for some time now, and I am proud that Lewisham council was one of the first local authorities in the country to become an accredited living wage employer in 2012. I am pleased that other local authorities have since followed suit and shown their commitment to ensuring that people are paid a real living wage that enables them to enjoy an acceptable standard of living and live free from poverty.
But the living wage is not only good for working people it is good for businesses too. More than 80 per cent of living wage employers believe it has enhanced the quality of work of their staff. It has been linked to higher morale, and lower staff turnover, to higher productivity and reduced absenteeism.
The idea of paying people enough money to live on should not be an unusual or radical thing for us to advocate – in the Labour party the fight for a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work has been a fundamental part of what we believe in. Unfortunately, one in four people in work in Lewisham still earns below the living wage, and this is just not acceptable. That is why we continue to strive for fair pay and are actively encouraging local businesses to follow the council’s example.
This year our aim has been to encourage more businesses in our borough to become accredited living wage employers and we are writing to 50 of the largest companies in the borough to ask them to go living wage. Since April we have offered an incentive to businesses to help make the possibility of a living wage job a reality for our residents, and as a result we have seen the number of accredited living wage employers triple in Lewisham. We have said to local employers that if they become accredited, we will offer them a discount on their business rates of up to £5,000, depending on the size and type of organisation they are.
I am confident that by leading the way on fair pay at a local authority level and showing the importance of paying a fair wage to our council employees, we can ensure that more of our residents are getting the wages they deserve and helping them to have a quality of life that is not just about living hand to mouth and means they can cover the real cost of living in London today.
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Steve Bullock is the directly elected mayor of Lewisham. He tweets at @mayorbullock
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