WARRINGTON North MP Helen Jones has expressed shock that LiveWire are not paying their staff the Living Wage.
The MP, who is a strong supporter for the introduction of the Living Wage, said: “Warrington Borough Council started paying the Living Wage last year and that was a real step forward. However, I am shocked to learn that LiveWire have not followed suit.
“I welcomed the new Living Wage rates, of £8.45 per hour, which the Living Wage Foundation announced last November. It is a sorry state of affairs that our community interest company cannot pay its staff the Living Wage.
“It remains a fact that a fifth of all employed workers are paid less than the Living Wage. People are in effect still working for their poverty. That cannot be right and the company delivering leisure services to our town should ensure their employees earn enough to cover the cost of living. Even in the face of deep cuts and austerity they should be prioritising fairness and helping to build stronger communities and local economies.
“They can afford thousands for consultants but cannot pay their staff a Living Wage.”
A spokesperson from LiveWire, said: “We pay all of our staff the national minimum wage or above and from April, we will be increasing our minimum hourly rate to £7.50 per hour.
“Following a benchmarking exercise carried out last year, we identified that our rates of pay are above the average market rates for our sector.”
6 Comments
lets hear the same critiscism of asda, tesco,local nurseries etc none of whom pay the living wage. Oh no I forgot they are not civil servants.If our MP feels that strongly she should be pushing the living wage for all her constituents
Well said and I couldn’t agree more. Most employers especially smaller companies only pay national minimum wage too and for anyone under 25 that’s only £6.95 an hour. Some under 25’s I know have been to college are now in qualified in trades like electricians, plumbers, barbers, hairdressers etc….but still only on £6.95. Pathetic but then again maybe that’s the employers fault for not wanting to pay higher rates and knowing there are plenty of people willing to do the work for that or to face unemployment.
Maybe the MP’s would do more use if they pushed for no age discrimination re minimum pay, if under 25’s were paid a better rate maybe they could even save towards getting themselves on the housing ladder. As it is they have no blummin’ chance of ever affording somewhere to live with house and rental prices being so high.
She could of course start discussions with Livewire management about how to rectify this? But I very much doubt that she will even though she is the MP. She’s seems more like a journalist than an MP. Gets her team to go around digging for stories and angles, and then claims a scoop. Followed by …Well, precisely nothing. And then moves onto the next story. Time after time.
I don’t understand – the Labour controlled council created Livewire to make sure exactly this happened. In addition new joiners will no doubt get worse pension rights than those still on the Cheshire scheme with Livewire (but still underwritten by WBC). Since saving money was Labour’s point why does a Labour MP object to extra money being available for Libraries and the rest for services to the taxpayer?!
well your lot created the situation, so what’s your point?
Whatever Helen Jones says or does always attracts criticism on these news pages due to the party political stance of the majority of the posters. Since her very public backstabbing of Jeremy Corbyn I must admit that I’m not too keen on her myself. But party politics or personal preference shouldn’t completely blind us to the point she is making.
I think she is right in her criticism of LiveWire, as a community interest company it should be setting an example and paying the living wage to all staff. Isn’t over half of it’s total yearly income being spent on management? When the management of these services was carried out by WBC how many people were actually ‘managing’ them? one perhaps? Now there is a ‘management board’ and all those in the top posts are earning top salaries and have very generous pension arrangements, whilst the ‘real workers’ just get the minimum wage. It seems more like a ‘management interest’ company to me. Why don’t they cut the number of people in management posts & make cuts to the pension allowances – then they could well afford to pay the living wage to those who actually keep the services running.
Asda, Tesco etc should all be paying the living wage, and it’s disgraceful that the law permits such companies to make mass profits whilst workers are expected to exist in poverty. But these companies were set up to make profit for shareholders and are not claiming to be ‘community interest companies’.
If Helen Jones is serious in her complaint and not as some posters are suggesting just publicity seeking then perhaps she should be instigating an investigation by the regulators.
Meanwhile how about some comments on David Mowats recent suggestion that old people should be looked after by their families and not the state – how he thinks families earning a wage not high enough to be regarded as a living wage for themselves could possibly support their older relatives as well is beyond belief.
Interesting that members of opposing parties have not made a great hue and cry about him saying this, is it because they all share the same opinions with regard to the future care of the elderly?.