- 27/11/2014
- Posted by: Ken Skates MS
- Category: News
Labour Assembly Member for Clwyd South, Ken Skates, has joined calls for Wrexham Council to ensure fair and equal pay for all of its employees.
Campaigners have demanded the authority’s workers are all paid a Living Wage – and Labour AM Mr Skates says they have his full support.
Members of TCC (Trefnu Cymunedol Cymru /Together Creating Communities) delivered video messages to Wrexham councillors’ homes with information about the North Wales Living Wage Campaign and an invitation to support it.
Mr Skates said: “Times are incredibly tough for our councils at the moment because of the unprecedented cuts we are seeing from the UK Government in Westminster, but I firmly believe this should be a priority.
“Most children living in poverty have parents who are working – they’re just not being paid what they should be. The living wage is based on what someone needs to earn to cover the basic costs of getting by. It’s not too much to ask.”
The Living Wage, a pay rate calculated every year as the minimum needed for an acceptable standard of living, is now £7.85 an hour outside of London – £1.35 per hour more than the National Minimum Wage. It is believed that more than 1,600 jobs at the council pay below the Living Wage and 90% of these jobs are done by women.
Mr Skates added: “I am pleased that Wrexham Council has agreed to create a taskforce to look at how increased wages for its lowest-paid workers could be funded, and I look forward to the authority soon being in a position to pay hundreds more of its employees nearer to what they deserve.
“I salute the hard work of campaigners to keep this issue in the spotlight, and join my colleagues Ian Lucas MP and Lesley Griffiths AM in backing the fight for fairer wages for all.”
