Fairer Pay at Leeds Met

The Fair Pay Campus campaign asks for Universities to pay all their staff the living wage and make sure their highest pay packet is no more than 10x bigger than their lowest (University average is 15:1). This is important because lower pay gaps make happier organizations and societies; and the Living Wage is the wage just enough for a decent standard of living. Launched in 2011 by the Young Greens, there are currently two universities that are Fair Pay Campuses (but they come with their own other problems).

Campaign background

Lower pay gaps aren’t only great in theory, they’re great in practice. In their book, The Spirit Level, Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett reveal how a dumbfounding number of social and health problems are linked to high pay gaps in societies. As Kate Pickett writes:

“[they] have more violence, they have higher teenage birth rates, they have more obesity, they have lower levels of trust, they have lower levels of child well-being…”

These problems extend to organizations such as Universities. Universities with higher pay gaps get less work done and more unhappy staff. Not only that, but Universities are public bodies (mostly funded publicly via student’s tuition fees and Governmental grants). And there is only one public organization that doesn’t have a pay gap of 10:1; the University. Hence the campaign.

The Living Wage, enough for a decent standard of living, is £7.45 per hour for those outside of London. For those who are on the minimum wage (£6.19), benefits go toward making up the gap between what the minimum wage is and what it enough to pay for a decent living standard. In effect then benefits allow organizations to pay less than they should. The Living Wage not only saves the Government money (because of unclaimed benefits) but also businesses themselves (in happier, less absent, staff). The Living Wage then is what the minimum wage should be. Again, hence the campaign.

Leeds Met University: An Unfair Pay Campus

Leeds Metropolitan University pays their agency staff the minimum wage (£6.19 an hour); 18x less than the Vice Chancellor’s hourly rate (£111 creating a pay gap of 18:1). Needless to say Leeds Met is not a Fair Pay University. Although Vice Chancellor Susan Price hasn’t agreed to the campaign’s conditions she is an executive member of an organization that:

“champions the contribution of …students and graduates to a fairer Britain and a more innovative global economy, through evidence based policy and research”.

Quite fitting really.

Sign the petition here for this campaign:
http://goo.gl/GG7Hd