Union leaders call for living wage guaranteed by law

General secretaries from nine major trade unions have signed a letter to John Sentamu, Archbishop of York, urging him to back a statutory Living Wage.

Writing to him in his capacity as Chair of the Living Wage Commission, which is due to publish its final report at the end of June, they say:

“The case for the living wage has been well made over the past few years, and there is strong public support for an approach that requires all employers – both public and private – to do the right thing by their workforces, wherever they may be located in the world. The Commission should be seeking to lead the national debate by calling for the living wage to be more than simply a voluntary extra over and above the national minimum wage.”

The list includes General Secretaries of Labour-affiliated unions Unison, Unite, GMB, BECTU and Usdaw. What is interesting is that the report will be published just a matter of weeks before Labour’s National Policy Forum meeting in Milton Keynes, which takes places on the 18th-20th July. If this is anything to go by, it looks like the unions are going to be pushing pretty hard for a statutory Living Wage as a manifesto commitment.

You can read the letter in full here.