Boris Johnson lifts London Living Wage to Ł7.45

Press Release

Boris Johnson lifts London Living Wage to Ł7.45
10-7-2008 362

Mayor of London Boris Johnson today delivered on another election promise by announcing that he is increasing the Living Wage for London to £7.45 per hour which is nearly 35 per cent higher than the national minimum wage set by Government and recognises the particularly high and rising costs of living in the capital.

The new figure will apply to all Greater London Authority Group staff and also to all new contracts as soon as possible.

Twenty-seven organisations, including the GLA Group, the Metropolitan Police Service, Barclays Bank have now signed up to pay their staff the London Living Wage. Ealing Council has committed to introducing the London Living Wage in key contracts from September.

The previous Living Wage for London was £7.20 an hour and the new figure and how it is calculated is outlined in ‘A fairer London: The 2008 Living Wage in London’

The Mayor said:

‘There is too much poverty and deprivation and one way I can keep an election promise to tackle it is to raise the London Living Wage and step up the campaign to persuade London employers to match my commitment to ensure all GLA Group employees and contractors receive at least £7.45 per hour.

‘I want City Hall to lead by example by ensuring its staff can maintain a decent standard of living in one of the most expensive cities in the world. Therefore I have made it clear to all parts of the organization that I expect the Living Wage to be the basic standard.

‘This is not only morally right but also makes good business sense contributing to better recruitment and retention of staff, higher productivity, and a more loyal workforce with high morale.’

Megan Dobney, Regional Secretary for the TUC in London said:

‘Trade unions and the TUC very much welcome Mayor Johnson's commitment to taking forward the Living Wage in London. In challenging economic times low paid Londoners are struggling to meet their everyday living costs and in-work poverty remains an unacceptable fact for too many. We're pleased that Boris Johnson has committed to the continued implementation of the policy throughout the GLA Group. And the Mayor was absolutely right to call on all employers in London to pay a living wage and to ask them to ensure that their contractors do likewise. We look forward to working closely with the Boris Johnson to ensure that the living wage is secured for low paid workers across London.

Ealing Council Leader, Jason Stacey, said:

‘We support the Mayor's plan to give hardworking Londoners a living wage. In Ealing we have already introduced a living wage for our dinner ladies and we will be renegotiating other contracts with suppliers when they come up.

‘This is about making work pay. It is better to see people working and doing something useful and earning a decent wage rather than being dependent on the state through benefits.’

Barclays Employee Relations Director Dominic Johnson said:

‘We believe that people who work for our contractors, whether cleaners, security staff or in other roles, all contribute to our customers' experience of Barclays. Fair pay means motivated staff who stay working at Barclays longer. Improving people's standard of living makes business sense.’

ENDS

Notes to Editors

The report can be found on the GLA Economics web pages
The Living Wage is independently calculated annually by GLA Economics and is defined as “a wage that achieves an adequate level of warmth and shelter, a healthy palatable diet, social integration and avoidance of chronic stress for earners and their dependents.”
All GLA group staff are paid at or above the London Living Wage. The GLA and all organisations within the group (London Development Agency, Transport for London, London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority, Metropolitan Police Authority and the Metropolitan Police Service) have confirmed that all their direct employees are now paid at or above the 2007 Living Wage of £7.20 per hour and the Mayor expects them to ensure all staff are paid at least £7.45 per hour as soon as possible.
Taking account of both full-time and part-time workers in London, around one in seven employees receive less than the £6.50 poverty threshold wage and one in five employees receive less than the £7.45 London Living Wage.
Twenty-seven organisations, including the GLA Group, have now signed up to paying their staff the London Living Wage. Some of the other organisations besides the GLA Group include the Metropolitan Police Service, St Bart’s and the London Hospital, large banks such as HSBC and Deutsche Bank, higher education institutions such as the London School of Economics, think tanks like the Institute for Public Policy Research and a number of voluntary sector organisations such as the Child Poverty Action Group. There has also been interest from a number of London Boroughs regarding the London Living Wage and so some of these may be paying the Living Wage by next year. Ealing and Newham Councils have committed to paying the London Living Wage on key contracts. The Mayor is encouraging all London employers to join the campaign.
In June 2007 Barclays announced the introduction of a market-leading base pay rate of £7.50 per hour for its third-party employees working in Greater London. A total of around 1,000 cleaning, mailroom, gym and catering employees working across 370 Barclays branches and offices throughout the capital have directly benefited from these increases.