28 Oct 2011

Lining Wage: not if you work for Her Majesty

I've just read this week's SchNEWS and copy one item below re a Living Wage. Greens have long campaigned for a Living Wage - Brighton have just adopted one following Greens gaining power there. Surely Her Majesty should be leading by example?

POOR'S PAY REIGNED IN

There were muted celebrations from cleaners at Buckingham Palace last week as they won a pay rise from £6.45 to the princely sum of £7.50 per hour - still short of the London Living Wage of £8.30 they had been campaigning for.

Sadly Her Majesty's altruism has its limits. On the day the pay rise was announced, hospitality contractor 'Off To Work' was offering shifts for a 'wonderful team' to work at Windsor Castle for £6.81 per hour. Part of Off To Work's 'company vision' is that people 'should feel like kings for one small moment' - presumably it wasn't referring to its staff.

1 comment:

Philip said...

Has the city learnt nothing from the banking crisis?


FTSE 100 confirms worse fears; the rich are getting richer while everyone else struggles with cuts.

"Outrageous, unfair and morally reprehensible" fumes Penny Kemp of The Green Party.

More than £1.3 billion has been taken away from council's annual spending on help for the over 65's, pensions are losing value, nurseries are closing and millions are living in fuel poverty and we see a 49% pay rise for Britain's top bosses: THEIR average salary hits £2.7m while the UK's average salary crawls in at £24,000. A tiny minority continue to be rewarded for failure.

Prime Minister David Cameron, speaking in Australia, said the report was "concerning". It is more than concerning Mr Cameron, it is wrong and makes a nonsense of any further cuts.

It is examples of corporate greed such as this that prompted Jenny Jones, Green Party mayoral candidate to campaign to turn London into the ‘Fair Pay City' As Jenny herself states;

"During Boris Johnson's Mayorship the number of people within the GLA group earning more than 10 times the Living Wage has risen by 56% (from 62 to 97). The Chief Executive of Crossrail, Rob Holden, earns £857,134: a figure approximately 55 times the Living Wage (1).

A 10:1 maximum pay ratio would seriously reduce the pay gap in our city. It is unacceptable to use the economic crisis to defend paying workers less than the amount needed to support a family at the same as paying out colossal salaries to chief executives."