Trade unions and the real Living Wage: survey evidence from the UK

• Author: Edmund Heery,Deborah Hann,David Nash
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/irj.12224
• Published date: 01 July 2018
• Date: 01 July 2018

Trade unions and the real Living Wage:

survey evidence from the UK

Edmund Heery, Deborah Hann and David Nash

ABSTRACT

This article uses evidence from a survey of accredited Living Wage Employers to ex-

amine the extent to which trade unions have supported, campaigned for and been in-

volved in the introduction of the voluntary or ‘real’Living Wage in the UK. It reports

that while unions tended to view the adoption of the Living Wage favourably and to

support its introduction they typically were not heavily involved either in the initial

decision to adopt the standard or in its implementation. This pattern of findings, it

is suggested, is consistent with the union response to corporate social responsibility

initiatives and provides only limited support for the commonly argued position that

‘economic justice’movements provide fertile ground for the development of union-

community coalitions.

1 INTRODUCTION

A notable development in industrial relations in recent years has been the growth of

civil regulation: the formation of norms, standards and codes of practice by civil

society organisations (CSOs) that they seek to have adopted by employers

(Williams et al., 2011). An important question that is raised by this development con-

cerns the relationship between civil regulation and more established methods of reg-

ulating employment through trade unionism and collective bargaining. One

possibility is that civil regulation can hybridise with joint regulation, serving to rein-

force the institutional position of trade unions and providing them with a resource to

better represent their members. A reinforcing dynamic of this kind is suggested in the

literature on union revitalisation, by those who argue that unions can benefit from

forming coalitions with CSOs that can provide unions with additional resources,

campaigning expertise, enhanced legitimacy and the ability to contact previously

unorganised workers (Tattersall, 2010). Coalitions might also benefit CSOs, allowing

them to draw upon union resources, such as bargaining relationships with employers

and political influence, to help diffuse civil regulation. A particular benefit that unions

might provide to CSOs is a presence at the workplace, allowing for the monitoring

and full implementation of labour standards in a manner that compensates for

❒Edmund Heery, Professor of Employment Relations, Deborah Hann, Lecturer in Employment

Relations and David Nash, Lecturer in Employment Relations, Cardiff Business School, Cardiff

University, Colum Drive, Cardiff CF10 3EU, UK. Correspondence should be addressed to: Edmund

Heery, Cardiff University, Cardiff Business School, Colum Drive, Cardiff CF10 3EU, UK. E-mail:

heery@cardiff.ac.uk

Industrial Relations Journal 49:4, 319–335

ISSN 0019-8692

© 2018 Brian Towers (BRITOW) and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

the lack of an ongoing workplace presence of many campaigning organisations

(Heery et al., 2014; Harvey et al., 2017).

Alternatively, civil regulation may pose a threat to joint regulation, eroding the role

of trade unions in representing workers and displacing collective bargaining. A dy-

namic of this kind is suggested in the critical literature on voluntary codes of conduct

applied by multinational companies to their supply chains, which it is claimed, sup-

plant independent representation through trade unions in the countries where

supplier firms operate (Esbenshade, 2004). It is also suggested by the large body of lit-

erature on new social movements, which contain a frequent assertion, that the

identity-based movements that have emerged since the 1960s have progressively

eroded the position of the ‘old’movement of labour. Piore and Safford (2006), for ex-

ample, argue that movements of this type have generated a fundamental change in the

‘regime of workplace governance’that has largely replaced collective bargaining in

the United States, though they emphasise the central part occupied by statutory em-

ployment rights in this regime rather than voluntary, civil regulation.

A third arrangement is also possible, in which civil regulation and joint regulation

remain distant from one another, with the former exerting little influence on the posi-

tion of trade unions, whether for good or ill. This relationship of independence might

arise, for instance, if civil regulation is confined to non-union employers, to non-union

workers in unionised organisations or to employment issues with which trade unions

typically do not engage (Heery et al., 2012). Where civil regulation and joint regula-

tion occupy separate spheres in this way, then they may be viewed as complementary,

each compensating for the failings of the other.

This article explores these three different possibilities, using original research on the

UK’s real Living Wage. The latter is a voluntary wage standard, derived from inde-

pendent research into the expenditure needs of low-wage workers, which is promoted

by the Living Wage Foundation (LWF) in conjunction with the Poverty Alliance, in

Scotland, and Cynnal Cymru, in Wales. The standard comprises an hourly rate of pay

that is meant to provide full-time workers with a modest but decent income: it is not a

subsistence standard but rather includes provision for leisure expenditure and per-

sonal development. Separate rates are calculated for London and for the rest of the

UK, both of which are higher than the confusingly titled National Living Wage,

the statutory minimum rate of pay that applies to workers of 25 or over. In April

2018, the UK Living Wage stood at £8.75, the London Living Wage at £10.20 and

the National Living Wage at £7.83.

The Living Wage campaign in the UK was launched in 2001 in the East End of

London, and in 2011, LWF was created and the process of accrediting employers be-

gan. LWF is an offshoot of Citizens UK, the British arm of the international commu-

nity organising movement, and is part of an international campaign to promote the

Living Wage, which originated in the United States and which has since spread to a

number of other countries (Luce, 2017). The central activity of LWF is the accredita-

tion of employers that agree to pay the Living Wage. Once accredited, employers un-

dertake to pay the Living Wage to all direct employees and to indirect workers

employed by contractors who work permanently on the employer’s premises, such

as catering, cleaning and security staff. Unlike the National Living Wage, the real

Living Wage is paid to all workers aged 18 or more, except to those on apprentice-

ships and other training contracts.

Since 2011, the scheme has met with considerable success. By June 2018, a total

of 4,978 organisations had been accredited as Living Wage Employers (LWEs)

320 Edmund Heery, Deborah Hann and David Nash

© 2018 Brian Towers (BRITOW) and John Wiley & Sons Ltd