Over the past sixteen years, the Living Wage campaign, led by Citizens UK, has lifted tens of thousands of families out of working poverty, putting hundreds of millions of pounds of increased wages into the pockets of low-paid workers nationwide.
Half a decade ago, Islington LBC became the UK’s first accredited Living Wage local authority, securing at least the London Living Wage for all 5,000 of its own staff while cutting its chief executive’s pay by £50,000. Over the last five years, we’ve worked hard to build on that start by providing civic leadership and promoting the real Living Wage in Islington and beyond.
An important early step was reviewing existing council contracts to bring the Living Wage to contracted staff as well as those directly employed by the council. We also amended our procurement approach so that we only procure services from organisations that pay their staff at least the Living Wage. Layers of contracting shouldn’t absolve councils of their responsibility for those who, in the end, work for them. We would recommend that councils looking to become Living Wage authorities should review their current contracts and renegotiate them assertively where necessary, recognising the considerable power they have in the marketplace.
There are many employers in Islington other than the council and we’ve made a concerted effort to reach out to persuade them to pay the Living Wage too. We’ve highlighted the positive consequences for employers, who see an increase in staff morale, improved rates of retention, lower rates of sickness absence and clear reputational gain from their staff being paid a Living Wage. As a result, Islington now has 125 accredited living wage employers – one of the highest levels of any local authority area in the country. We are now asking Living Wage businesses to act as Living Wage Ambassadors to help communicate the benefits to their peers.
Last year, we were the first council to became a Living Wage Friendly Funder, requiring all the charities and voluntary sector organisations which receive funding through our £3m core grants programme to pay the Living Wage to their employees as well. Most recently, we have begun to lobby other local grant-giving organisations to make their grants conditional on their grantees paying the Living Wage as well.
We are using every lever at our disposal to tackle the scourge of working poverty. This week we have become the country’s first Living Wage commercial landlord, insisting that new tenants in the 60 or so commercial properties we let commit to paying at least the London Living Wage to all their staff working in our buildings. Plus, representatives of our Pension Fund have gone to FTSE100 AGMs to lobby company boards to do the right thing and go Living Wage too, with some success.
There is still more work to do though. While all our own staff and 98% of our contractors are now paid at least the Living Wage, including over 500 homecare workers, we haven’t yet reached 10%. The last tough nut to crack is securing the Living Wage for staff in care homes – they account for the 2% of our contractors who despite doing a hard day’s work don’t earn enough to live on. Most of the elderly and vulnerable adults for whom we are responsible in residential care are in care homes located in other boroughs. In most of the care homes we use, we do not buy all the beds. This is a complex challenge and not one that can be solved simply by throwing money at it. If it were that straightforward, we would probably have sorted it by now. And there is room for improvement among other big employers in the borough too: it can’t be right that the army of contracted catering staff at Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium on a match day, for instance, still don’t get paid a Living Wage.
Over 3,500 organisations nationally are now accredited as Living Wage Employers, including over 75 local authorities. But there are still over five million people across the UK working for less than a Living Wage each day. The more councils that commit to paying their staff and contractors the Living Wage, the better. Everyone who cooks our kids’ school meals, staffs our gyms and swimming pools and keeps our offices safe and clean deserves to earn enough to live on in return for a hard day’s work.
Cllr Andy Hull is executive member for finance, performance and community safety at Islington LBC