Time for a Living Wage

I just got this request below to sign a Downing Street petition re a Living Wage - I woulds urge people to sign:

I am Nick Wall, a GMB member and political activist from Merseyside. I am running a petition on the 10 Downing Street website in support of a living wage and an end to poverty pay, which now has over 700 signatures, including Polly Toynbee, Frank Field MP, Caroline Lucas and Jean Lambert MEPs and many anti-poverty campaigners, councillors and trade unionists. Here's the link for the petition : to sign it, click on the link below and fill in your personal details:

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/living-wage-2007/

The number of people living below the poverty line in the UK is higher than the EU average and continues to increase. The Living Wage is a simple idea which is long overdue. The gap between the rich and the poor continues to grow and needs to be addressed - a national living wage would go someway to improve the lives of those on low pay and tackle poverty.

Our trade union movement and others have brought many successes, but more is needed - especially in an increasingly globalised economy where production will tend to migrate to where costs are lowest. Profit-hungry corporations will seek lower paid staff overseas. This is the very essence of globalisation and will lead to the final demise of British manufacturing industry. Labour, Tory and Liberal Democrat politicians alike tell us globalisation is inevitable. It isn't. It is a consequence of deliberate decisions made by corporate bosses encouraged by government policy-makers.

We need instead a full range of policies including tax to build a balanced and stable economy with sustainable jobs; putting people before profit as the slogan goes. Why is our primary objective of economic policy the privilege and interests of business? We need policies that encourage and support localisation - for example to develop Britain's manufacturing industry by implementing a Green industrial strategy - tackling climate change, building a stable and sustainable economy, and creating meaningful jobs all at the same time - a "site here to sell here" policy would mean companies like Dyson keeping their UK factory open for the British market. This will also avoid the havoc traditionally wreaked on local communities and regions whenever an industry on which they are dependent moves abroad.

Those, like Peter Mandelson, Tony Blair and David Cameron, who believe that Chinese competition presents no threat to Europe - since we can give up what’s left of our older manufacturing base and concentrate instead on knowledge-intensive industries - are in denial. China and India are fast developing their own low-cost but highly-skilled expertise in these areas too: 20 per cent of China’s exports are already 'high-tech', and with two million graduates a year there’s every reason to believe that this percentage will grow.

Chinese costs are artificially low because of its appalling record on the environment and it's failure to protect workers from exploitative pay, long hours and industrial accidents: some 100,000 deaths in industrial accidents every year, and over 100 million Chinese living on less than a dollar a day.

The free trade model just isn’t working; it is running wild. Economic globalisation is creating a "race to the bottom", in which corporations move to the lowest wages, lowest environmental protection and weakest health and safety laws. Labour's zeal for furthering economic globalisation has meant they are reorganising Britain for corporations, at the cost of the old social justice values. Unemployment may be less, but people now travel further to work for longer hours with less favourable contracts in less secure jobs. The rich are getting richer and the poor have got poorer - huge numbers of British children and pensioners remain in poverty.

We must build a trading system based on high social and environmental standards, with quotas where necessary. This would be both fairer and more sustainable for workers everywhere - it is vital we don't loose consideration of the wider picture. Hey I didn't mean to write all that but got a little carried away - want to rework it a little but meetings now so forgive the slight repetition and ramblings off topic...

Nick Wall also has set up a blog to run alongside the petition, with recent news, comments and resources, including information on what the living wage campaign is about. From that blog site comes this info:

Why a living wage ?

The national minimum wage does not allow many workers to escape poverty. The Low Pay Commission do not take into account peoples actual needs in setting the NMW. In the UK 4¼ million adults aged 22 to retirement were paid less than £6.50 per hour in 2006. Two thirds of these were women and a half were part-time workers. A living wagecould ensure that no workers receive poverty pay or have to rely on benefits, and could allow contract workers to lay claim to the same pay and conditions as staff directly employed by government and local councils.

Some say that a living wage would actually harm poor people by losing vital jobs. This is exactly the same argument that was trotted out innumerable times against the introduction of the NMW. And what was the effect of the NMW ? According to the government's own evidence last year to the Low Pay Commission, "UK academic research to date has not found any firm evidence that the adult minimum wage has reduced employment rates or raised unemployment; this is consistent with the available international evidence."

"British people work some of the longest hours in Europe yet 7 out of 10 people working over 48 hours per week say they would like to work fewer hours. For many however this is impossible as they simply cannot afford to do so. It is currently possible for someone to work more than 60 hours a week and still be paid less than £11,000 per year. The number of people living below the poverty line in the UK is higher than the EU average and continues to increase. The long hours culture is endangering our health and acting as a detriment to our family life. We can't have a culture that says you can not rest. We need a national living wage immediately to ensure this changes and everyone can make ends meet without working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week."
Jean Lambert MEP, Green Party

Why now ?

In the USA since 1994, over 120 city and state governments have passed living wage ordinances following pressure from local campaigners. Living wage campaigns have raised levels of pay and provided benefits like health care for thousands of workers. Studies there have shown that the living wage has had no significant adverse impact on jobs, business or the economy.

Following pressure from campaigners, London mayor Ken Livingstone has given his backing to a living wage in London. A living wage unit hasbeen set up in City Hall, through which figures for the London living wage are calculated and published. Implementation has so far proved athornier problem, but the publication of the figures has already started to change the pay bargaining landscape. It follows on some notable victories for low paid workers, in particular cleaners in East London Hospitals and cleaners in Canary Wharf and the City of London thousands of whom have secured a living wage. Last year QMUL became the UK's first first living wage campus, and in March 2007 the LSE agreed to pay its cleaners a living wage.

London's problems are not unique. Everywhere you go around the country, there is poverty pay, and there is a need for a living wage. A living wage in every region in the UK would be a huge boost to millions of low paid workers. This is something that ordinary people can help to bring about, by following the lead of campaigners in the USA and in London, and setting up living wage campaigns in our own towns and workplaces.

"I welcome the rise in the Living Wage to £7.05 [in May 2006]. This seems to be the bare minimum to ensure that the basic dignity of workers and their families is respected. While our nation benefits economically from the presence of undocumented workers, too often we turn a blind eye when they are exploited by employers."
Cardinal of Westminister, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Conno