COVENTRY MESSAGE BOARD

Staff at Lidl’s throughout Coventry and Warwickshire will become some of the first supermarket workers to be paid the full living wage.



The German discount supermarket revealed on Friday that staff across the UK would receive a pay rise following the company’s recording breaking year of sales.

This means around 53 per cent of the group’s 17,000-strong UK workforce will receive a pay hike from October 1 of an extra £1,200 per year.

Workers at stores in Coventry and Warwickshire can now expect to earn around £8.20-an-hour.

The supermarket has also pledged to match the rate set by the Living Wage Foundation if it goes higher.

The Foundation campaigns for companies to pay staff enough to meet the cost of living and sets a rate it believes achieves this.

The store has confirmed that they will not be raising their prices as a result of the wage increase.

The supermarket launched in the UK in 1994, Lidl has grown into a 620-strong chain across England, Scotland and Wales.

Lidl currently has a store in Foleshill and two near Binley.

Nearly a fifth of all Coventry jobs pay less than the living wage



Nearly a fifth of all jobs in Coventry were paying less than the living wage, according to the latest government figures.

There were 26,000 jobs in the city which paid less than the living wage in 2014 - 18 per cent of all roles.

Most of the Coventry people in the low paid jobs were working in the hotel and restaurant industry, as cleaners or as carers for elderly and disabled people.

The jobs paid less than £7.85 per hour - £286.88 a week or £14,917 a year - for a 37-and-a-half hour week.

The living wage is calculated by Loughborough University academics based on the cost of living in the UK and has risen to £7.85 this year.

That is more than a pound higher than the national minimum wage for over 21-year-olds, which is set by government and has to be paid by law.

The living wage is voluntary for firms that sign up to it with the Living Wage Foundation.

Jane Nellist, secretary of the Coventry Trades Union Council, said: “Less than 50 years ago, Coventry pay rates were some of the best in the country.

“What these latest pay figures demonstrate is that there is an increasing use of low pay by companies.

“Coupled with a rise in the use of zero hours and part time contracts it’s no wonder that people in work often have to resort to using the growing number of food banks in the city

“The attacks on working tax credits and benefit cuts are going to make matters worse.

“Coventry TUC supports a living wage of £10 an hour which would be a proper living wage.”

Sarah Vero, director of the Living Wage Foundation, said: “Seventy per cent of consumers say they would prefer to shop with a Living Wage employer.”

In Coventry, Costa Coffee, Lidl and Morrisons have all agreed to pay the living wage to staff.

Other employers which pay the 2015 living wage of £7.85 an hour outside London are banking giants Barclays, HSBC and Santander, British Gas and charities Save the Children and Age UK.

Chancellor George Osborne has pledged to introduce a national living wage from next year but he plans to set it at a lower rate of £7.20 an hour and it will only apply to people of 25 and over.

At the moment, by law, employers must pay the minimum wage of £3.87 for under 18s, £5.30 for 18 to 20-year-olds and £6.70 for those aged 21 and above.