Real Living Wage: Call for more NI employers to increase pay

Campaign group Living Wage Foundation increased the Real Living Wage to £9.90 per hour earlier this week

The campaign group the Living Wage Foundation has said it is starting to tackle low pay in Northern Ireland.

It sets the Real Living Wage, which increased this week to £9.90 an hour.

The group considers that to be the hourly rate needed to give a full-time worker and their family a reasonable standard of living and employers can choose whether or not to sign up to it.

It differs from the compulsory National Living Wage, which is £8.91 an hour for people over the age of 23.

Of the four UK nations, Northern Ireland has the highest proportion of jobs paying below the Real Living Wage.

On Tuesday the Northern Ireland Executive secured accreditation as a living wage employer.

There are currently about 40 employers accredited with the foundation in Northern Ireland

Graham Griffiths of the Living Wage Foundation told BBC News NI that there was work to be done in Northern Ireland.

"We are very much at the start of our journey to tackle low pay in Northern Ireland," he said.

"There are currently around 40 employers that are accredited with the foundation.

"We need to be calling on employers that can afford to go beyond the minimum wage to commit to a Real Living Wage.

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"Last year we accredited the first social care provider in Northern Ireland, Connected Health, but we need more firsts.

"We need a first local authority, we need universities and large private sector companies.

"I'm really hopeful about the potential impact on low-paid workers as a result of the executive's commitment."

'Benefit thousands of workers'

Finance Minister Conor Murphy said Stormont would make further moves on low pay in 2022.

He said accreditation with the Living Wage Foundation meant the executive was committed to paying civil servants at least the Real Living Wage.

"This commitment will also apply to new contracts for people who work in civil service buildings, which will impact on staff providing security, catering, and cleaning services," he said.

"Each year government spends around £3bn buying goods, services and construction work from the private sector - it's important this spending power is used for the good of society.

"Therefore from June next year any company delivering services for government will have to pay staff working on that contract the living wage.

"This is transformative and will benefit thousands of workers in the private sector."

Ciaran Farren of Hawthorn Heights, which designs and builds play parks and sport pitches, said the business had seen the benefits of paying staff higher wages.

"It has shown that when employees are valued, they produce better work, they take pride in their work," he said.

"It creates a team environment and we have found that over the last few years it has developed the company and made us a stronger company.

"There is an increase in costs and overheads but the quality of work and the projects we are working on since doing it has completely outweighed that cost."