By Yousif Farah
Last week saw the launch of the Fair Pay Fortnight, which is an
awareness fortnight sponsored by TUC. The
fortnight is held to raise awareness about the cost of living crisis in the
country, mainly caused by the imbalanced policies regarding pay rise verses
rocketing prices.
In the past five years general commodities’ prices have gone
up by almost 20% whereas, pay rises for the majority of the public have only
increased by a modest 3%.
Government officials blame the lag between pay rise and
inflation on the recent economic turmoil. However, in research carried out by Landman Economics, who
provide Government organisations and think tanks with consultancy services, it
was established that for every 1% increase in public sector pay rounds, £675
million of extra value is injected into the economy and around 14,000 full-time
jobs are created.
Francis O’Grady head of the TUC says:
“The simple truth is that
many employers can afford to pay more. For large companies in sectors such as
food production, banking, construction and software/computing - which employ
over 1 million low- wage workers - paying all staff the living wage would mean
an increase of less than 0.5 per cent of the total wage bill.”
Another topic which is expected to be highlighted in the
campaign is zero hour contracts, which are spreading rapidly, according to the Office
Of National Statistics 3.4 million of the UK workforce are on such contracts and
1.3m where no hours were worked. A zero hour contract is a contract with no
guarantee of hours, only those benefits protected by law, such as holiday leave,
are guaranteed.
The irony is that many of the organisations implicated in
zero hours contracts, or those who are falling short of paying their employees a
fair living wage, are mega organisations such as Sports Direct and McDonalds who both have 90% of their workforce working under zero hour contracts.
Pub chain Weatherspoon, Burger King, Starbucks and many other big names including The Church of England, have also been heavily criticised in the mainstream media and accused of sending mixed messages. See the In My Shoes blog on the same topic.
Pub chain Weatherspoon, Burger King, Starbucks and many other big names including The Church of England, have also been heavily criticised in the mainstream media and accused of sending mixed messages. See the In My Shoes blog on the same topic.
Mr Justin Welby, head of the Church
of England, had called on employers to be responsible and pay their fair share of tax as
well as pay their employees a fair living wage. Mr Welby admitted that it is
embarrassing for the church to be found to be not paying the living wage. However, he puts it down to the complex
Administrative nature of the Establishment.
“The Church remains committed to all parishes, cathedrals
and dioceses paying the rate as soon as possible. But due to the make-up of the
Church of England - the fact that each church and cathedral is a separate
charity - this had to happen gradually.”
Such organisations are leading in their fields and should surely be leading by example, providing a guide to
smaller and emerging businesses and also sending a message that employees are the
backbone of any business and should be treated accordingly.
At Poached Creative and in many social enterprise organisations, despite our limited resources, we always aim to create suitable and fair
working conditions for our employees, that includes paying them a living wage.
Last spring we received an award for our commitment
to pay the London Living Wage at the Hackney Citizen Mayoral Assembly.
Jessica Smith director at Poached Creative says:
“The cost of living in Hackney is rising and we would like
to see more businesses in the borough supporting their employees with fair pay
and good employment conditions.
To find out more about the living wage campaign visit The Living Wage Foundation or to take part in the fortnight visit Fair Pay Fortnight.
