Frontline supermarket staff risk their lives every day and deserve better pay
The IndependentI was amused to receive a year-in-review email last week informing me that I had achieved the status of “number two purchaser of parmesan in 2020” in my local supermarket. New analysis by the Living Wage Foundation shows that in April 2020, at the height of the first lockdown, close to half of the 900,000-strong supermarket employee workforce earned below the “real living wage”. Strangely, this figure for supermarket employees in the first six months of the pandemic was higher than the 16 per cent recorded in the six months prior, suggesting that even as sales in supermarkets swelled many supermarket workers had hours that fell short of what they wanted and needed. We welcome the news that Morrisons has announced a pay rise for store colleagues to £10 per hour from April, meaning store colleagues will be paid at or above the real living wage. Morrisons has the honour of being the first supermarket to offer a real living wage for store colleagues – and hopefully will prompt other major retailers to follow suit.
History of this topic
Two in five lowest-paid workers ‘skipping meals and relying on food banks’
The Independent
UK’s most affordable supermarket revealed
The Independent
Nearly half of supermarket workers earn below real living wage, report says
The Independent
Coronavirus UK: MPs demand Government pay workers' wages
Daily Mail
Britons form huge queues to purchase toilet roll and strip shelves bare as panic-buying continues
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