An advocacy group is writing to chief executives at the top 100 UK companies to demand that they pay workers a “living wage”, after holding a rally in London yesterday.
Two and a half thousand investors, philanthropists and religious leaders led by FairPensions, an organisation committed to promoting responsible investment, gathered at Westminster Central Hall to mark the 10th anniversary of its living wage campaign.
The organisation, which is backed by church groups, the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust and unions Unison and Unite, believes that employees outside of London should be paid a basic £7.20 per hour and those in the capital should receive £7.85.
Campaigners said that the gap between the current statutory national minimum of £5.93, which is due increase to £6.08 in October, and the living wage figure that it advocates represents the amount of extra income required to bring the lowest-paid earners out of poverty. The group claims that there are more than 3.5 million workers in the UK who earn less than £7 per hour.
Members of FairPensions, meanwhile, collectively hold £13 billion of assets that are under management, which include shares in major companies.
The organisation’s chief executive Catherine Howarth told the BBC: “People are sickened by the ever-growing wage inequality in Britain’s biggest firms, but we haven’t had an effective way to make our voice heard until now. The combination of major investors and members of the public working together to bring the renumeration debate down to the shop floor should be irresistible.”
The group not only plans to write to chief executives at the country’s top firms, but also intends to raise the issue of low pay at a number of their annual general meetings over the coming months. FairPensions has already attended shareholder meetings at Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland, but now plans to participate in those held by GSK, Capita, Arriva and others.
London Mayor Boris Johnson also took the opportunity to increase the minimum wage from £7.85 to £8.30 per hour for workers in the capital yesterday. The figure is 40% higher than the national minimum and beats the regional living wage, which is set at £7.20 per hour.
