A Letter to the Living Wage Movement

27 March 2020

Dear Employers

I hope you, your family, friends and colleagues are all well in these extraordinary times.

So many of you will be facing new levels of pressure in both your work life and personally. The volume and pace of the of decisions many you are having to make every day will be enormous. Our Team are here to work through this crisis with you in any way we can.  The conversations we have had so far with the Network have been inspiring. It is clear that despite the challenges and huge anxiety, many Living Wage employers are demonstrating values led decision making, invoking the same qualities that drove Network members to join the Living Wage movement.

Resilience, kindness, resourcefulness, fairness and empathy will go a long way to helping everyone through this crisis. These values and behaviours will not only help everyone right now but will be the bedrock of helping the Living Wage Movement and their staff. Getting that message out there will be part of the small role Living Wage Scotland can play in this crisis. We will be asking the Living Wage Network throughout Scotland for the good news, the innovative solutions, the personal stories and the examples of kindness. We want to share and amplify these stories via social media, our website and in our conversations with stakeholders and colleagues.

When the Covid-19 crisis is over there will be somethings in society that will have changed forever. One of them will be a sincere questioning of the sustainability and existence of low pay and in-work poverty. People will be looking to judge. interact and buy from business that showed fairness and kindness during these troubled times. In greater numbers than ever before that judgement will be about how staff were treated and will be treated. They will also remember how business and organisations interacted with their community. Consumers will remember the stories of these hard times – good and bad. Being a proud Living Wage accredited employer is one of the clearest messages you can send about your organisation’s values. Telling the positive stories will be a role for the individual members of the Network and Living Wage Scotland. We will work harder than ever to make sure they are heard.

We have already started amplifying the voices, actions and thoughts of the Living Wage Network. Sharing your stories about what you are doing for your teams, community and organisations. Please keep an eye out on social media for #InThisTogether.

Finally, if you want to speak to the team about your accreditation, the challenges you are facing or want to share how you and your team are responding to Covid-19 please get in touch with us via accreditation@povertyalliance.org or by calling 0141 353 0440

Jack Evans

Living Wage Scotland Manager

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