A Member of the European Parliament (MEP) visited one of Hove’s biggest private sector employers today (Friday 7 November) to learn why it had signed up to pay the living wage.
Anneliese Dodds, one of ten MEPs for south east England, which includes Brighton and Hove, visited Legal and General (L&G) as part of Living Wage Week.
The Labour MEP said that she went to the L&G’s City Park offices, in The Droveway, Hove, to learn about the company’s work and the positive impact that paying a living wage had had on its business.
She said: “I strongly support Living Wage Week and the campaign for a living wage.
“No one should be forced to work two or three jobs just to have enough money to live on.
“I’m pleased that Ed Miliband has announced that a future Labour government would introduce ‘make work pay’ contracts to incentivise firms to pay the living wage.”
She added that 80 per cent of living wage employers surveyed felt that the quality of the work done by their staff had improved after they started paying the living wage.
And employers had also benefited from an average fall in absenteeism of 25 per cent, improved employee retention rates and fewer customer complaints.
She said that as an employer herself she was proud to pay every member of her staff at least the living wage.
The living wage is an hourly rate – £7.85 outside London – that is calculated to match the basic cost of living in Britain.
The campaign for a living wage started because research suggested that it wasn’t possible to cover basic living costs on the national minimum wage brought in by the last Labour government.
The statutory minimum wage is currently set at £6.50 an hour.
Visiting us in Hove today @AnnelieseDodds. Proud to be Living Wage Employers #LivingWageWeek pic.twitter.com/NoPi4SuLUq
— Legal & General (@landg_group) November 7, 2014
It’s great that Labour has finally adopted the Green Party policy of the Living Wage, only 3 years late!
Now we need them to adopt the Green Party policy of raising the minimum wage to £10 per hour by 2020. Labour are campaigning for £8, which is almost no increase after inflation (Good old Tory lite!).