A real Living Wage for NHS workers! (outside London)
Citizens UK is congratulating negotiators at the 13 Unions who last week struck a pay deal to give a welcome salary boost for 1 million NHS workers.
Under the deal every NHS worker in England will be paid at least £8.93 an hour (18p above the real living wage of £8.75 an hour), or £17,460 a year if they work full-time.
Here at Citizens UK we're warmly welcoming the move, although this does still mean that workers in London are not being uplifted to the £10.20 an hour London Living Wage. We'd like to see NHS bosses go further, so that everyone at the organisation gets a wage linked to living costs that is enough to support them on.
Matthew Bolton, incoming Citizens UK Executive Director, commented:
“This is fantastic news for NHS staff. The people keeping our hospitals running, working long hours under great pressure, and saving lives deserve a real Living Wage. Hundreds of thousands of workers outside London will get a real Living Wage and workers in London will receive a welcome pay rise.
However we’d ask that NHS bosses make a long term plan to extend this to all contract staff as well, and to take NHS workers in our capital beyond the £10.20 an hour needed for workers to live in dignity and security in London. This is a welcome first step towards decent pay for hard working public servants, we hope to see other government departments follow suit.”