The Living Wage
Friends in Lancaster believe a Living Wage should pay enough to live on
Living Wage Week is between Sunday 30 October and Saturday 5 November. This is not George Osborne’s National Living Wage, which is just a hike up of the minimum wage, but an hourly rate of pay set by the Living Wage Foundation, based on calculations made by The Centre for Research in Social Policy at the Loughborough University. They have calculated what would constitute a wage that would give people enough to live on. In 2015/16 this has been £8.25 per hour outside London and £9.40 in London. The new rate will be announced by the Foundation this week.
This is an issue of both human dignity and equality. Work should be the surest way out of poverty. There is plenty of evidence, both from employers and employees, that being part of an organisation that pays the Living Wage brings benefits. These include loyalty, pride in work, dignity, improvements in quality of life, less absenteeism and sickness.
Since June 2015 Lancaster Quakers have been leading a national Living Wage campaign. We were asked to do this at a gathering to follow up Manchester and Warrington’s Social Justice Group’s Quaker Equality Week. We have produced a series of posters, which are available to individuals and Meetings via our website, together with packs, which have been mailed to ninety-two Meetings who expressed an interest in becoming involved in this work.
Since then we have engaged in local action, writing to employers, speaking to members of the public on the streets and writing letters to the Co-op board of directors challenging their policy on pay differentials between their highest and lowest paid workers. We have also celebrated businesses that do pay the Living Wage in our area.
One of our current objectives is to get as many parts of our Quaker community not only to pay the Living Wage but also to become accredited Living Wage employers. This is important because it shows us witnessing to our testimony to equality and it protects our own staff.
Organisations that are accredited commit to continue to pay the Living Wage and to implement the annual rise within six months of the new rate announcement each year.
We have been working with the Living Wage Foundation and raising issues with them that affect some of our Area Meetings who are applying for accreditation. These have mainly been concerned with offsetting payment against the Living Wage for free accommodation provided to wardens. It is good to be an active part of developing fair and workable policies and this is ongoing.
So, what might you do? As an individual you could write to your local council, or to universities or busi-nesses, to enquire whether they pay the Living Wage and, if not, ask what stops them? It seems important that we get our own house in order on this issue, so a good first step might be to check with your Local and Area Meetings that they are paying the Living Wage to anyone they employ for more than two hours a week.
If, as an Area Meeting, you wish to pursue accredita-tion, get in touch with us as we have information to help you.
It is salutary to read and hear people speak about the difference being fairly paid makes to their lives. Many talk of not having to work two jobs to earn enough to survive. One man spoke about being able to have time off at weekends to be with his wife and children and a woman in her fifties talked about being able to afford to buy herself a bottle of perfume for the first time in her life.
This seems to us to be a practical and effective way to campaign against in-work poverty.
Further information: livingwage@lancsquakers.org.uk
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