THE BATTLE for a living wage is escalating, with Southampton Solent University and Norwich City Football Club, being the latest employers who have now pledged to pay their workforce the living wage.
The Greater London Authority has calculated the 2015 living wage as £9.15 an hour for London and the Living Wage Foundation has calculated the rate for the rest of the UK at £7.85 an hour.
The National Minimum Wage is currently set at £6.50 per hour for workers aged 21+, £5.13 per hour for workers aged 18-20, £3.79 per hour for under-18s and £2.73 per hour for apprentices.
It is illegal to pay workers under the minimum wage.
The TUC conference last year voted unanimously to accept as their policy a motion put by the Bakers’ Union, which demanded a minimum wage of £10 an hour regardless of the age of the worker.
On Tuesday, public sector union Unison welcomed Southampton Solent University’s commitment to provide a ‘top-up’ payment to staff employed by the university’s main contractors, so as to ensure that nobody working on campus is paid below the living wage.
Unison said: ‘The union has been actively campaigning for the introduction of the living wage for employees of the contractors that operate within the university and believes this to be an important step forward.’
Regional organiser James Smith said: ‘We are delighted that the university has taken this positive step and that the time that Unison members have devoted to campaigning on this issue has seen such an positive result.’
He added: ‘This decision will uplift the pay of the lowest-paid staff who provide key services to the university and its students.
‘It has the potential to alleviate some of the financial pressures experienced by our members due to the increased cost of living in recent years.
‘This measure will be good for the local economy and follows the decision of other large local employers in Southampton, such as the Labour-led Southampton City Council, to pay the living wage to its staff.’
All the university’s directly-employed staff are already paid above the living wage rate.
The three main contract service partners will make the uplift in wages to their staff working across the Solent campuses.
The living wage rate is being introduced in two stages: the first increase will be made on 1 August 2015, with full alignment in September 2016.
The decision has the potential to affect cleaning, maintenance and catering staff who provide services within the university sites.
Making the announcement, vice chancellor Professor Graham Baldwin said: ‘We value our contracted staff, who make an enormous contribution to the university through a variety of roles.
‘I am pleased that we are taking this step to finance a phased increase in wages through our main contractors, so that their staff will receive a living wage rate in the future.’
Norwich City Football Club is now going to also pay it staff the living wage.
Norwich City Football Club (FC) has committed to phase in the national living wage of £7.85 during the 2015-2016 season.
Norwich City FC said that it is ‘currently working towards an accreditation from The Living Wage Foundation by aiming to achieve full implementation of the living wage for all its staff by the 2016-17 season’.
The football club follows in the footsteps of Luton Town FC and Chelsea FC, which have both already committed to paying the living wage to employees.
Norwich City FC will also review external agencies and contractors who work at the club to make sure they meet the necessary criteria to receive the living wage by 2016-17.
David McNally, chief executive of Norwich City FC, said: ‘Everyone at the club is firmly behind the introduction of the living wage for permanent employees and we’re delighted to be able to start rolling this out across the business over this coming season.
‘Although it represents a significant additional annual investment by the club, we firmly believe the business benefits substantially from having a motivated workforce whose salaries properly reflect the cost of living in the UK.
‘It is our intention to begin implementing the living wage during the 2015-16 season and to have it fully in place by 2016-17.’
Meanwhile News Shopper journalists have joined the London Newsquest 12-day strike demanding the ‘London Living Wage is paid to all staff ’.
They are also on strike because they have not even got an office to work from!
Staff on the News Shopper yesterday joined Newsquest colleagues in South London on strike over pay, staffing, redundancies and a plan to place 16 weekly newspapers under a single managing editor.
Journalists based in Sutton started their 12-day strike on Thursday last week, after 14 editorial positions were put at risk of redundancy.
The National Union of Journalists said that negotiations had been held with Newsquest, at the arbitration service ACAS, ‘where some movement was made, for example agreeing to pay the London Living Wage and signing new house agreements’.
But the union said: ‘On Friday, management said that when negotiations resume they would have to start from the beginning.’
A News Shopper NUJ chapel spokesman said: ‘If management were trying to scare us, then it has backfired. We are even more determined to take action.
‘The fact that we have to go on strike to get a London Living Wage for some of our colleagues and an office to work in is incredible.’
In a message of support, the News Guild-CWA in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico sent the following statement:
‘What these journalists are fighting for, we are all fighting for. Our members face exactly this kind of greed and arrogance from Gannett and other corporate media owners.
‘They reward top executives with fat salaries and bonuses but plead poverty when it comes to raises for employees, even though they are working harder than ever.
‘In the strongest possible terms, the Guild calls upon Newsquest/Gannett to show its employees the respect they deserve by paying them fair wages, maintaining adequate staffing levels, ending the constant cycle of cuts and reinvesting in its news products.
‘The company fails to understand that the disrespect they are showing to their workers is disrespect to their readers, their customers.
‘You simply cannot keep doing more, or even the same amount of work, or the same quality of work, with eviscerated staffs whose remaining workers are exhausted, stressed and fearful that their job will be the next one to go.’
The NUJ is calling for a three per cent salary increase and changes to the reorganisation affecting titles in south and south east London.
•Up to 330 jobs are threatened at a seafood plant, in the seaport town of Grimsby in Humberside, the Unite union warned on Tuesday.
The potential loss of up to 330 jobs at Young’s Seafood in Grimsby, after the company lost a vital Sainsbury’s contract, was described as ‘extremely serious and very worrying’ by Unite.
The jobs that could go are based at the Marsden Road site and account for two-thirds of the workforce of 300 staff and 200 agency workers.
