Eddie Follan, Policy Officer for the Poverty Alliance Living Wage Campaign, and Jen McCarey, from Unison, talk about why it is necessary to implement a Living Wage. Stephen Boyd, Assistant Secretary of the Scottish Trade Unions Congress, talks about how the Scottish economy works. The Whose Economy? seminars, organised by Oxfam Scotland and the University of the West of Scotland, brought together experts to look at recent changes in the Scottish economy and their impact on Scotland's most vulnerable communities. Held over winter and spring 2010-11 in Edinburgh, Inverness, Glasgow and Stirling, the series posed the question of what economy is being created in Scotland and, specifically, for whom? To find out more and view other Whose Economy? papers, presentations and videos visit: http://www.oxfamblogs.org/ukpovertypost/whose-economy-seminar-series-winter-2010-spring-2011/

1. Why we need a Living Wage
Jennifer McCarey and Eddie Follan Scottish Living
Wage Campaign

2. The Scottish Living Wage
• Currently £7.15 and due to be
uprated later in the year
• Based on the JRF Minimum
Income Standard (MIS).
• Scottish Living Wage
Campaign made up of trade
unions, NGOs and faith groups

3. The Need for a Living Wage :Low Pay in Scotland
• 370,000 workers paid less than
£7.00 per hour
• Between 05/06 and 07/08 half of
adults and children living in
families with low incomes in
working rather than workless
households.
• Women are the worst affected:
43% earning less than £7.00 were
women in part time work
• Women make up half of full time
workers on low pay
• Young men working full time are
more likely to be in a low paid job
than young full time women
workers although this is reversed
as men and women age.

4. The Need for a Living Wage: Low Pay by Industry
• 51,000 jobs in the food
beverage and accommodation
sector pay an annual wage of
less than £12,000
• 82,000 jobs in the retail sector
pay less than £6.28
• 92,00 jobs in administrative
and support services pay
below the living wage
• Until recently around 20% of
directly employed staff working
in the public sector were paid
less than the living wage

5. The Need for a Living Wage: Impact of low pay
• The lack of a living wage
for hundreds of
thousands of Scottish
Workers locks them in to
poverty.
The lack of a living wage is
bad for:
• Workers
• Employers,
• Communities
• The Economy

6. The Need for a Living Wage :The Moral Case
• Successive governments have
emphasised work as a route
out of poverty
• Living Costs are increasing
and those at the bottom are hit
the hardest
• Welfare reforms are set to
tighten the conditions on
claiming benefits. Is work
paying less than a living wage
the only option?
• There is a moral imperative on
employers not to pay workers
a wage that effectively keeps
them in poverty

7. The Need for a Living Wage: Where are we now?
• High level political
Support
• Increasing numbers of
public bodies becoming
living wage employers:
Scottish
Government, local
authorities, the NHS
• Little movement in the
private sector
• Local living wage
campaigns appearing

8. The Need for a Living Wage: What Next?
• Living Wage as a
National Policy
• A Living Wage Unit
• Living wage a key part of
public sector procurement
• Increasing pressure on
the private and voluntary
sectors

9. To view all the papers in the Whose
Economy series click here
To view all the videos and presentations
from the seminars click here