Having a Laugh

Over the past few days there has been a groundswell of support for the so-called 'Living Wage' - Boris Johnson (London Mayor) is a great fan as is No 10 Downing Street, apparently.

The living wage is now like 'apple pie and ice cream' - what's not to like about a policy that becomes the responsibility of other people to implement.

So amidst all the hue and cry - and declarations of undying support - ask yourself this simple question:

'How much better would it have been if Labour and the trade unions had actually been fighting hard to achieve equal pay at the workplace - over the past 15 years?"

Because for most of the past 15 years we had a Labour Government in power at Westminster - and many of UK's big council employers were under Labour control.

Take Birmingham City Council for example - a Labour controlled council for much of this period and one of the very worst offenders on the subject of big pay differences between traditional male and female jobs.

The BBC reported recently that - 'the annual salary of a female Manual Grade 2 worker was £11,127, while the equivalent male salary was £30,599.

Now by my arithmetic that works out as £6.00 an hour or so for the woman worker on Grade 2 - while the man on the very same Grade 2 was being paid a whopping £16.00 an hour.

And I can tell you that it was not the Tooth Fairy who negotiated this enormous pay differential - and then did nothing about closing the pay gap for years and years - it was Birmingham's largely Labour controlled council and Labour supporting unions. 

Odd that, isn't it - so forgive me for laughing out loud when I read the following article in the Guardian newspaper at the weekend - written jointly by David Miliband, the Labour MP, and Dave Prentis of Unison.

Unless I've been asleep for a decade and a half I haven't seen any national campaigns over equal pay - or threats of strike action - as there have been over final salary pensions schemes (which benefit higher paid workers most of course).

The point being that low paid, predominantly women council workers have been losing out for a very long time - and the latest Living Wage campaign is a terrible indictment of how little the Labour Party and Labour supporting trade unions did - to stand up for equal pay over the past 15 years. 

Despite the introduction of a landmark UK Single Status (Equal Pay) Agreement in 1997 - which was formally adopted in Scotland in 1999.

Remember as well that all of this took place against the background of a UK Equal Pay Act - which has been the law of the land since 1970.

To my mind it's enough to make you cry, not laugh - but that's politics for you.

"A living wage is in everyone's interests"

"It's not just the poor who benefit from fair pay

On Monday, a new living wage rate will be announced. That is the hourly rate of pay that allows workers to earn enough to provide them and their families with the basics of a decent life. At its heart is an ethical argument for preventing in-work poverty and ensuring workers are not exploited through low wages. It's currently £8.30 for those in London and £7.20 for the rest of the UK.

Our living wage campaign involving unions, students and voluntary organisations is sometimes quietly, sometimes noisily, changing lives. A growing number of companies and public-sector employers are leading the way in signing up to the living wage. And the Labour party is on board, from the leadership team to the grassroots.

But progress depends on keeping up the pressure and keeping up the campaigning. And it means finding incentives to persuade reluctant employers that it's in their interests as well.

The minimum wage has been a great success, lifting more than a million out of poverty without job losses. The living wage campaign builds on that success in an attempt to stamp out in-work poverty.

Recent reports have highlighted the growing gap between rich and poor, including an important warning from the Resolution Foundation that by 2020 families will be no better off than they were in 2000. This problem needs to be mended if we are to make progress as a nation – fair pay for a fair day's work has to be part of that deal.

It's not as if pain is being equally shared. Pay and bonuses for many of the UK FTSE 350 company directors are rising to levels that the majority of workers could only dream of. Last year, rewards for those directors leapt by 49% – a world away from the average UK salary of £21,330.

Public tendering is one area where this could work, particularly with growing privatisation. For example, could government reward local authorities that get employers to sign up to the living wage, with some of the savings from tax credits to go into a local skills fund, controlled by those authorities?

Given the growing number of employers who use the living wage as a benchmark, we believe it is time for the Low Pay Commission's remit to be amended to make it responsible for official living wage figures in addition to the national minimum wage.

There are clear and proven benefits to local communities and businesses too – people have more money to spend and they spend it locally. Big companies such as KPMG and many public-sector employers, such as the GLA, where the mayor, Boris Johnson, has carried on the work of Ken Livingstone, the devolved administrations and many large local government and civil service employers are paying the living wage.

Our joint campaigning with Labour Students and the NUS began at FE colleges and made a difference to cleaners, nursery nurses and kitchen assistants. Unison negotiated with the Association of Colleges to introduce a living wage, but a minority of colleges signed up to it. We wrote to principals urging them to sign up and 59% have now done so. Movement for Change is working around the country on campuses and in communities showing how local power can make a real change to people's lives. We believe the tipping point has been reached.

Universities and colleges, like other public authorities, are under financial pressure, but the evidence shows that paying the living wage cuts absenteeism and labour turnover and raises productivity. We believe that the public sector should be exemplar employers. So we will continue our campaigning in colleges, and universities where there are handsome salaries paid to vice-chancellors, and living wage campaigns that deserve victory. We have already achieved success at Kent and Manchester universities.

In the NHS, the lowest pay point on Agenda for Change national pay scales is £7.24 (just 4p above the current rate). But in local government, nearly a quarter of the workforce – more than 200,000 people – earn less than the living wage.

Poverty pay has no place in the 21st century. Modern employers understand that; we just need to bring the rest with us."

David Miliband is MP for South Shields; Dave Prentis is the general secretary of Unison