Dundee has today become the first city in the UK to be awarded recognition for a plan to become a Living Wage City and will be implementing their approach as part of Living Wage Scotland’s ‘Making Living Wage Places’ scheme, which recognises and encourages city-level approaches to tackling low pay.
An alliance of prominent employers in Dundee have today launched an Action Plan setting out how they will work together on “Making Dundee a Living Wage City” in partnership with Living Wage Scotland. They become the first city to adopt a new, place-based approach to driving uptake of the real Living Wage by local businesses.
Alison Henderson, Chamber CEO said: "We are proud to be a partner in driving this forward. Dundee’s ambition to be a Living Wage City is very much a statement of intent, looking to double the number of workers covered by the Scottish Living Wage over the next three years. The economic benefits of change in our city must make a difference to everyone. Get in touch with us if you want to talk about how straightforward we found the Living Wage Accreditation process and the benefits to our workforce & business."
The launch event was hosted by DC Thomson, and the alliance includes major local employers such as Dundee City Council, Dundee Voluntary Action, Dundee & Angus College, Xplore Dundee and Dundee & Angus Chamber of Commerce.
Over 50 Dundee employers have already voluntarily committed to ensure all their staff and subcontracted staff receive a real Living Wage of £9.00 an hour, significantly higher than the government minimum of £7.83.
The 50 Living Wage employers already accredited in Dundee cover the equivalent to a quarter of all workers in the city. The Action Plan launched today sets out how the alliance intends to double the number of workers covered by Living Wage accreditation in Dundee over the next three years.
The Action Plan includes commitments to:
• Sign up other major employers in the city
• Encourage employers in retail and hospitality to commit to the real Living Wage
• Support and celebrate small businesses who join the Living Wage employer movement
The Scottish Government’s Fair Work Minister Jamie Hepburn said:
“It is fantastic to see Dundee setting out its ambition to become the UK’s first ‘Living Wage City’.
“The significance of the Living Wage cannot be overstated. Evidence shows that paying it leads to increased productivity, better morale and lower sickness absence. It also demonstrates to the world that an organisation is committed to treating its workforce well.
“While Scotland is making good progress in becoming a Living Wage nation, and punches well above its weight in terms of the proportion of people paid at least the Living Wage, more remains to be done. The Scottish Government is committed to doing everything in our power to put fair work and equality at the heart of our labour market.”
John Alexander, Leader of Dundee City Council who are part of the alliance said:
“In Dundee we are incredibly proud to be championing the real Living Wage and implementing this new approach to encourage more local businesses to pay the real Living Wage.
“The city council is one of the largest Living Wage employers in the city, ensuring that all our workers receive a fair day’s pay for a hard day’s work.
“I am aware that there is still more to do and we will work with partners to encourage and support more employers in the city to pay the real Living Wage.”
Lynn Anderson, Living Wage Places National Coordinator at Living Wage Scotland said:
“We are delighted to launch the ‘Making Living Wage Places’ scheme and recognise Dundee as the first city in the UK to adopt the approach.
“This scheme encourages local employers to work together to promote the benefits of paying the real Living Wage to other businesses. The alliance of local Living Wage employers in Dundee have produced an impressive Action Plan which should see thousands of workers in Dundee benefit from pay increases to the real Living Wage over the next three years, and recognition of this is well deserved”.
Peter Kelly, Director of the Poverty Alliance, who host Living Wage Scotland, said:
“The commitment of this alliance of employers to the people of Dundee is hugely exciting. We look forward to working with them on making Dundee a Living Wage city. We want to see towns and cities in Scotland work with us to put an end to low pay, and this is the first step on that journey.”
Ellis Watson, Executive Chairman of DC Thomson Media and Chairman of Tay Cities Enterprise Executive, said:
“DC Thomson made a conscious decision to pay all of our direct employees the real Living Wage around five years ago. Having seen the difference it makes to people’s lives, we extended it to all of our group companies and agency colleagues regularly working in our offices, signing up as an accredited Living Wage employer in 2017.
“In these times of economic uncertainty across the UK, it is heartening to see Dundee taking the lead in tackling low pay, and the inequality it creates, by becoming the UK’s first city formally recognised for its Living Wage ambition. Being part of this initiative allows us to work with other like-minded employers to help transform the city and ensure local people benefit from and have a stake in the local community.
“Businesses only thrive when those that work for them and buy from them are prosperous too.”
Douglas White, Head of Advocacy, Carnegie UK Trust said:
“The Carnegie UK Trust has been delighted to support the development of the Making Living Wage Places scheme and we are thrilled that Dundee is the first place in the UK to make this highly important commitment. We look forward to seeing the progress the city makes and to many other places following Dundee’s impressive lead.”
Clare Goff, Living Wage Places Project Manager at the Living Wage Foundation said:
“Major employers within Dundee are working together to improve the lives of citizens and boost the local economy by making a real Living Wage the norm.
“The Living Wage Foundation has launched the ‘Making Living Wage Places’ scheme to recognise groups of local ‘anchor’ institutions which not only pay the Living Wage to their employers and contractors, but which also seek to use their power and influence to spread Living Wage accreditation through their local area.”
Xplore Dundee
As Dundee's principal public transport provider, we fulfill around 35,000 passenger journeys every day. Our service is part of the fabric of the city - carrying people where they need to be, and employing more than 300 people.
Dundee City Council
Dundee draws skilled workers from a 60-minute catchment population of 640,000 and has a local population of over 140,000. The availability of a large pool of highly skilled labour is a key feature in the Dundee economy. Flexibility in the labour force is currently more prevalent in Dundee than in Scotland as a whole. All forms of labour market flexibility - part-time, temporary employment, self-employment and shift work - are widely operational within the city. Labour force stability in the city is excellent, enabling companies to plan with confidence. Labour turnover levels are less than 5% and absenteeism averages 2%.
D.C. Thomson & Co. Ltd.
DC Thomson & Co Ltd is a private company and is one of the leading media organisations in the United Kingdom. The company publishes newspapers, magazines, comics and books. More recently, DC Thomson has expanded into the internet and digital developments including a major focus on genealogy.
Dundee & Angus Chamber of Commerce
As the leading business membership organisation in Dundee & Angus and part of the worldwide long-established Chamber of Commerce brand, we help local businesses to connect, communicate and develop for business benefit.
