Leader – a Living Wage is a fair one

Living Wage: Hackney Council is broadly supportive. Photograph: Hackney Citizen

There is increasing pressure on organisations across this city to sign up to paying all their workers at least the London Living Wage, that is the hourly rate of pay that enables the fulfilment of life’s basic needs and staves off poverty.

The arguments for the Living Wage are overwhelming. Not only does it help people survive and provide for themselves and their families, it actually benefits the local economy as a whole.

In London, the Living Wage is now £8.55 per hour, having recently risen from £8.30  due to inflation and spiralling costs.

Some great campaigning work has been done by unions and groups such as London Citizens, but pressure for the Living Wage to be taken up by more employers has also come from some perhaps surprising quarters. Conservative Mayor of London Boris Johnson is on board, matching noises made by Labour’s leader Ed Miliband.

Although Hackney Council long ago signed up to the Living Wage campaign, the situation for contracted labourers who work for the Town Hall  remains ambiguous.

For this council to truly affirm its affiliation with the working people of Hackney, it should now surely lead by example and commit to paying all its workers – directly employed and employed through contractors – at least £8.55 per hour.