Assembly backs bid to make public-owned bodies pay Living Wage

Thursday 03 March 2022

Public-owned bodies will be pushed to ensure they are paying the Living Wage to all their employees by the end of the year, after a unanimous vote in the States Assembly.

The Living Wage takes into account the wider cost of living in the island, with the aim of ensuring employees are able to live with dignity.

The rate for 2022 is £11.27 per hour, and is reviewed annually, with accredited businesses having six months to implement the new rate from 1 January each year. 

Senator Sam Mézec had asked the States Assembly to request Treasury Minister Deputy Susie Pinel, in her capacity as a shareholder representative, urge States-owned bodies to seek accreditation as Living Wage employers by the end of 2022. 

In a report explaining his proposal, the Reform Jersey leader said that, in comparison to the Living Wage, the current Minimum Wage of  £9.22 an hour was a "poverty wage". 

"On a fulltime contract, a single worker would not earn enough to achieve a basic standard of living without having to resort to seeking welfare. In essence, this ends up being a taxpayer subsidy of poverty pay employers," he explained.

All 43 present Members voted to approve the proposition during yesterday's States Assembly vote.

Senator Mézec’s proposition followed a previous one from his Reform Jersey colleague, Deputy Geoff Southern, which received the full backing of the States Assembly in 2018.

Deputy Southern’s proposition requested that the Treasury Minister urge the bodies of which the States are the shareholder representative to seek Living Wage accreditation. 

However, it emerged in January that, in the four years since the proposition was adopted, only two had done so.