A motion to raise the minimum amount paid to employees of the City Council to the national ‘living wage’ of £7.20 was passed unanimously on Thursday evening. All staff directly employed by the City Council will now be paid at least this hourly rate by April 2013 at the latest.

The proposal comes just before Living Wage Week, which will take place across the UK between November 4 and 10. This move comes in the wake of continued pressure on the Council to become a Living Wage Employer.

The national ‘living wage’ (as opposed to the minimum wage), established in 2001, takes into account the cost of housing, food, and utilities. It is often cited as the minimum wage required to support a family of four.

Plans to ensure that staff not directly employed by the Council also receive the current national living wage will be considered as part of their budgeting process for 2013/14. The Council will also encourage its contractors, such as the Leisure Centres in the city, to take similar steps. Councillor Rod Cantrill said:

“Cambridge is an expensive city in which to live and the minimum wage is not enough for families to make ends meet; the cost of housing, rising food bills and utility prices present real challenges.

“The Liberal Democrats in government have secured a tax cut for low paid families by raising the tax free allowance. And the city council’s move to make sure all of its employees are paid at least the living wage builds on this, giving people more money in their pockets.”

Cambridge MP Julian Huppert wrote in a blog entry for the Cambridge News:

“I’d like to see more companies paying a living wage, including the university and the colleges. But this is a decision for them to take, and we must acknowledge that some companies, especially the city’s small businesses, are fighting to survive against a backdrop of tough trading conditions and minimal, if any, help from the banks.”

Far from being a small business suffering from the banks’ unwillingness to lend, the University last week received an AAA credit rating, and issued bonds worth £350 million. The failure of Cambridge colleges to pay all staff at least the living wage was reported by Varsity in January. Figures, including a breakdown for each college, were released following a Freedom of Information request by the Cambridge Universities Labour Club.

At that time, 112 University employees were paid below the living wage, with trainee and Grade 1 pay brackets for 2011 under £7.20 per hour. The vice-chancellor of the University Sir Leszek Borysiewicz is currently paid a salary of £258,000. Around 400 employees hired by the Council on a casual basis will benefit from the pay increase. It is expected that temporary workers will receive the pay rise in the coming financial year.

The University statistics revealed that many of its employees paid below the living wage were occasional staff described as ‘casual’ workers. However, this term brackets staff without fixed contracts together with student employees. Peterhouse Bursar Richard Grigson informed Varsity that the figure for ‘casual’ workers at the college, listed as 30, actually includes “student library helpers”.

For this reason it is difficult to speculate on the breakdown of the figures listed as ‘casual’, or to ascertain exactly how many workers living in Cambridge are employed by each college. When the statistics were released, Homerton and Emmanuel employed 65 and 70 people below the living wage respectively. The figures for the present time are currently unknown, following Jesus’ decision to pay all employees the living wage, and continued pressure for other colleges to follow suit. However, many colleges have been reluctant to provide the figures for staff still paid below £7.20 per hour.

In March, a University spokesperson said: “Within the university, the majority of jobs below the living wage are generally trainee grades or individuals on zero hours contracts – i.e. they work when there is some work to do, but there is no obligation to provide a set number of hours of work in any period. Some of these may also be temporary in nature.” The potential variety of employment situations contained within the umbrella term ‘temporary’ means that the statistics are far from transparent. It remains to be seen whether the University or individual colleges will follow the lead taken by the City Council.