ASDA, Tesco, Wetherspoons and McDonald's: Pay your UK staff a real living wage.

For the aforementioned companies to pay all their UK staff the full 2016 living wage of £9.40/hour in London and £8.25/hour elsewhere. To commit to future pay rises in line with the cost of living as calculated by the Living Wage Foundation and not to pay for this by cutting any existing perks, bonuses or additional rates.

6 million workers in the UK are paid below the living wage and we are one of the most unequal countries in the developed world. Action on this must be taken for the good of society, working families, businesses and the economy in general.

What is a full living wage?

In April 2016 the government will increase the National Minimum Wage to £7.20/hour for over 25s. However this is still significantly less than the actual 2016 UK living wage which is £9.40/hour in London and £8.25 elsewhere. This is calculated each year by the non-partisan, anti-poverty Living Wage Foundation and is the minimum hourly income needed to sustain an acceptable quality of life for an adult when the basic costs of living are taken into consideration.

Can these companies afford to pay a full living wage?

Three of these companies combined made huge annual profits in 2014: Wetherspoons, £41 million(1) ;McDonalds, £225 million(2) and ASDA a staggering record £1.013 billion(3). Yet despite this, the overwhelming majority of their shop floor staff are not paid the full living wage.

ASDA and McDonalds siphon some of these profits off to wealthy shareholders in the United States, whilst in 2014 Wetherspoons CEO Tim Martin took home an eye-watering £353,000 (including £29,000 in travel perks alone), 30 times more than his average pub worker(4). So these companies have no defence other than their lust for money.

Admittedly Tesco are in a bit of a rut, recording a loss in 2014 following several years of multibillion pound profits yet that year they still managed to find £4.13 million to pay a new CEO for just 6 months work(5). Even so a living wage could be implemented at no extra cost but by reforming the current wage structure and expenditure in a way that puts its ordinary workers first. In fact a reputation for poor treatment of staff and suppliers is believed to be one of the factors for their decline in market share. With more competitors such as Aldi, Lidl and Morrisons agreeing to higher pay it would be an ideal time for Tesco to take this decision and regain the public trust.

All of these companies champion "community engagement" yet don't give due compensation to the working people of those very same communities! I believe this is wrong so the companies should show true corporate social responsibility and do their bit to tackle low pay and inequality in the UK.

Could this cost jobs or increase prices?

Not at all, in fact the opposite is far more likely. Research by the Living Wage Foundation has found a number of benefits for employers that make the decision to pay a living wage. These include higher productivity, increased retainment of staff and reduced recruitment costs(6. Not to mention an ethical image for the business which is very important in the digital age and the fact increasing the spending power of Britain's lowest paid workers is a great way to stimulate the economy.

It is therefore easy to conclude paying low wages is short-termism and bad for business. It is also a poor deal for UK taxpayers who have to subsidise these low wage bills with public money in the form of tax credits.

Why not petition for a statutory living wage?

It's been found campaigns such as this that tackle specific employers are much more effective and raise greater public awareness. Also we must consider many small business owners don't take home much pay themselves and struggle to break even, so enforcing the living wage immediately on them would be unfair. I personally like the idea of only letting companies pay their share holders dividends and enforcing executive pay limits until all employees are paid a living wage. This ensures we don't discriminate against the smallest or struggling firms.