Chelsea to be first Premier League club to pay all staff living wage
- Hearts also signed up to the initiative in Scotland this week
- Manchester City supporters call on chairman to pay living wage
Chelsea, owned by Roman Abramovich, have become the first fully professional football club in England to be accredited employers paying a living wage to all their staff. Supporter-owned FC United of Manchester became the first football club in Britain to be an accredited living wage employer in October and Hearts, in Scotland, signed up to the initiative this week.
Luton Town, of League Two, also committed this week to gaining the accreditation, which requires employers to pay a living wage to all staff, including those working for companies contracted to supply services. That is a high proportion of football clubs’ workers because most matchday staff, including stewards and people working in stadium catering operations, are employed by service companies.
The living wage of £7.85 per hour, £9.15 per hour in London, is assessed by Loughborough University’s Centre for Research in Social Policy, for the campaign body Citizens UK, as the minimum needed for people to provide for themselves and a family. The legal minimum wage set by the government is substantially lower: £6.50 per hour for adults, £5.13 for 18-20-year-olds and £3.79 per hour for those under-18, with no London weighting.
Gillian Owen, of Citizens UK, said Chelsea have worked through all contracts, including for workers in the hotel at Stamford Bridge, and reached a firm commitment that all staff will be paid the living wage, by 2017 if current contracts are in force until then.
“We believe football clubs are beacon employers with a history rooted in their communities, which still do brilliant community work, but they are sustaining this low pay, which is really tough,” Owen said. Citizens UK believes football clubs paying only minimum wages to workers is particularly unjust given the multimillion-pound salaries paid to individual players.
A group of Manchester City supporters delivered a letter to the club addressed to the chairman, Khaldoon Al Mubarak, calling on the club to become an accredited living wage employer. The letter, which congratulates City on this week’s opening of the new academy and its investment on and off the pitch and in the local community, argues that paying all staff a living wage would “complete the excellent work the club is doing.”
Christopher Fabby, one of the supporters who delivered the letter, said football clubs could set an example to other employers, not to seek profits partly due to low wages. “Paying the living wage would fit perfectly with the good work City are doing,” Fabby said. “We asked them to give that commitment, and set a date for it.”
City are committed to paying employed staff the living wage, but Owen said that in the modern economy, contracted out workers most commonly suffer low pay. City say they are pressing contract companies to pay their staff a living wage, but the club has not yet insisted on this or been through the accreditation process.
None of the other 18 Premier League club are understood to have committed even to paying their own employed staff the living wage.
