Fighting the injustice of low pay

By Olivia Bailey, National Chair of Labour Students

News broke over the weekend that David Miliband will travel to twenty universities around the country to listen to students’ views. The headlines inevitably focussed on David’s return to active involvement in the Party. But there was something else worthy of note about the story – David has committed to supporting Labour Students’ campaign for a Living Wage on University and College campuses across the UK, and the Movement for Change will be supporting us too.

The principle behind our Living Wage campaign is simple: everyone has the right to earn what is required to live. At the moment, our educational institutions are kept going by people being paid poverty wages. We believe that this is unacceptable.

Over the coming year we will be mobilising students in every corner of the UK to stand up and to fight alongside workers against this injustice. By the end of the year we aim to be able to say that every HE and FE institution has committed to paying all of their staff a living wage.

The campaign for a Living Wage is a campaign which chimes with the core values of every Labour activist. Fighting for a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work is at the heart of what we do in the Labour Party. But I’m not just excited by our Living Wage campaign because it is right, I am excited because I believe our campaign can reignite an energy and enthusiasm for local campaigning, and can demonstrate clearly that we don’t have to be in government to make a difference to people’s lives.

In the past in Labour Students our campaigns have been focussed towards change within the party or towards taking Labour’s message on to campuses and in to communities. That is a mindset that we are all used to. But as the Tory led government continue to cut the heart out of our communities, it is becoming more and more pressing that we change how we campaign. At the moment, we can’t make change happen from the top. We have to make it happen from the grassroots up.

Our campaign will be led by our members on the ground, working with those affected by poverty pay. It will depend on them building relationships and building a powerful campaign coalition on campus that can win a Living Wage agreement. We will provide all the training, support and resources from the centre but unless our members take the lead on their own campuses, the campaign will not succeed. We are investing in our members’ ability to be change makers, rather than investing in a centrist model that doesn’t utilise their skills.

Many in the party have been discussing the need to change how we campaign if we are to be ready for government, and we are looking forward to the outcomes of the Refounding Labour process. We hope that our Living Wage campaign will be a practical contribution to the debate. It is not just empty rhetoric to say that we need to become a movement again. It has to be our priority. Campaigning locally on issues like the Living Wage is one way to begin.

We hope that all of you will work with us over the coming year and that by the end of the year thousands will be better off.