Hull City Supporters’ Trust welcomes the Premier League’s March 2015 announcement regarding the payment of the Living Wage. The first step to this commitment is for clubs to pay the Living Wage as a minimum to all its permanent, full-time staff. However, this does not address the bulk of workers who are paid less than the LW – staff who are part-time, or temporary, or employed by contractors.
The background to the PL decision is this –
In November 2014 Andrew Pope, Chair of Labour Friends of Football, wrote to all Premier League and Football League chairmen asking whether each would consider paying their staff at least the Living Wage.
Hull City AFC did not respond.
The first club to commit paying the Living Wage as a minimum was League Two Luton Town in December 2015:
“This applies to all contracted members of staff in all departments including football, retail, catering, maintenance and administration. The change to staff pay will be absorbed by the club and there will be no increases in ticket or retail prices as a result.”
Following Luton’s decision, Chelsea and Everton also signed up. In February 2015 the Football Supporters’ Federation (FSF) announced it was the first national football body to sign up to pay the Living Wage.
A national petition urged the PL clubs to pay the Living Wage, and following the latest TV rights deal for the PL the FSF led a campaign to “share the wealth”, including a commitment to pay the Living Wage as a minimum. HCST supported both initiatives. It is part of the remit of a supporters’ trust to encourage its club to act fairly and with financial responsibility. A Premier League club, with the millions it receives from tv rights alone (soon to be dramatically increased with the new deal), has no excuse in failing to treat its employees, or contracted staff, with respect.
The Trust therefore wrote to Assem Allam on 31 March 2015 asking that the club go further than the PL agreement and pay all staff the Living Wage as a minimum.
Such a move would improve the reputation of the club and its owners in the eyes of both the general public and fans, many of whom see football as an industry of huge inequality, with players and owners benefitting hugely whilst other staff – who are essential to games taking place – are exploited and paid a pittance for their labours.
Read the letter here.
Sadly, on this issue as on most everything else, the club’s owners have failed to respond to us. We will continue to raise, in the public arena, the club’s failure to pay the Living Wage.
[countup date=2015/03/31]
[dtimer] since we asked the Allams to pay the Living Wage as a minimum to all staff
[/countup]