Glasgow City Council has increased the minimum wage for its employees, meaning its lowest paid workers will see their basic salaries increase by more than £1100 a year.
Leader of the city council, councillor Steven Purcell, has announced that a Glasgow Living Wage of £7 an hour will be set up for workers, who currently receive the minimum wage, which is £5.73.
The local authority will also encourage suppliers working on its behalf to pay staff on council business the increased amount. In addition, a Glasgow Living Wage Employer Award will be be created to encourage employers in the private, public and voluntary sectors to adopt the living wage for their staff.
Councillor Purcell said: “In order to tackle in-work poverty and encourage people back to work, we need to provide people with long-term skills, access to childcare and, most crucially, make work pay.
“Through our Modern Apprenticeship programme and Childcare Strategy we are providing skills and support but more can be done on low pay.
“It is simply unacceptable that almost one-in-five of Glasgow’s workers are paid less than £7 an hour and the Glasgow Living Wage has the potential to make a huge difference to thousands of families across the city.”
The Annual Survey of Household Earnings 2008, conducted by the Office of National Statistics, calculated that there were 394,000 jobs in the Glasgow City Council area, 20% of which pay less than £7.14 an hour.The survey also found that 40% of part-time employees are paid less than £6.64 an hour.
Glasgow is the first local authority in Scotland to establish a living wage. The first in Britain was the London Living Wage, launched by former Mayor Ken Livingstone in 2005.