Church Action on Poverty calls for £7/hour living wage

Church Action on Poverty has called on all employers to pay a Living Wage of at least £7 an hour - £7.42 in London - from 1 December 2007.

The charity also criticised what it called "continuing excesses and hypocrisy in boardroom pay levels".

Niall Cooper, CAP National Coordinator said, "Paying a living wage is not only moral right, but good news for both staff and employers.

"The latest data on Boardroom pay highlights the hypocrisy of company directors who pay themselves immoral pay increases - whilst continuing to pay poverty pay rates to many of their workers.

"We are the fourth wealthiest nation on the planet - it is time we started to share the benefits more equally amongst all who help to produce it."

"The past few years have seen huge and unjustifiable increases in boardroom pay - fuelling the growing gap between rich and poor. In 2000 company chief executives earned 62 times the pay of their average employees - now they pay themselves 104 times more. This cannot be right in a civilised society."

The increase in the living wage to £7 an hour would enable low paid workers to keep pace with the 3% growth in average earnings over the past 12 months.

Meanwhile, CAP also criticised FTSE 100 chief executives for recently 'awarding' themselves a 16% pay increase last year - doubling their earnings in the last five years to an average of £3.17m each.

Mr Cooper stressed that paying employees a living wage was also good for business. KPMG found that signing up as a Living Wage Employer reduced turnover of cleaning staff by 50 per cent.

A recent survey, meanwhile, found that better employment conditions lead to a better motivated workforce. One cleaner said, "I used to wake up in the night and feel sick thinking about work." Now that pay has improved "I feel proud to work in the hospital".