Living Wage NI
Living Wage NI, funded by the Living Wage Foundation and the Department for the Economy, aims to increase awareness of the real living wage and uptake of Living Wage accreditation among employers across NI.
The real Living Wage movement began as a grassroots campaign in East London in 2001 with the aim of ensuring a fair day’s pay for a hard day’s work. There are now 14,000 employers signed up with the Living Wage Foundation as Living Wage employers across the UK which has delivered almost half a million pay rises.
What is the real Living Wage?
The real Living Wage, as opposed to the National Living Wage, is independently calculated by the Resolution Foundation for the Living Wage Foundation and is based on what people need to get by. It also differs from the National Living Wage in that it is paid to everyone 18 and above.
It is currently £12.00 per hour across the UK and £13.15 in London.
Signing up as a living wage employer is voluntary and means paying all directly and indirectly employed staff a living wage.
The real Living Wage in Northern Ireland
In NI, 98 businesses and organisations are signed up as Living Wage employers compared with 3,637 in Scotland and 575 in Wales.
Advice NI, through our work as the regional Independent Advice Network, has a keen awareness of in-work poverty and the need to take a more holistic and upstream approach to tackling it. In 2021, we signed up as a Living Wage employer and encouraged our network to do the same through the publication of our report, It’s the Local Economy Stupid.
Our policy manifesto calls for the adoption of Community Wealth Building as a viable model for addressing poverty as well as climate change. It also advocates for the roll out of the Living Wage in NI to ensure income adequacy.
In 2022, we began discussions with the Living Wage Foundation on how this could become a reality. In order not to lose the momentum of the Living Wage for East Belfast Campaign, the Living Wage Foundation agreed that Advice NI would be their preferred partner in NI and agreed to fund us to provide advocacy on a regional basis.
Real living wage in Northern Ireland - BBC Radio Foyle
Our Head of Policy, Kevin Higgins, spoke to North West Today about rates of low pay, and emphasised the ‘big job’ to be done following the establishment of a Real Living Wage project in Northern Ireland.
Becoming a Living Wage Employer
Paying the real Living wage has several benefits for both employers and employee's. This includes:
- Better employee retention
- Increased productivity
- Improved employee relations
- Enhanced employer reputation
The video below from the Living Wage Foundation explains how to become a Living Wage Employer.
IN2 Engineering Ltd has accredited as a Living Wage Employer
IN2 is a progressive engineering consultancy with offices in Belfast, Dublin, Athlone, Berlin and London who have recently become part of the NI Living Wage network.