Oxford needs a pay rise. As a city, we have high rates of employment but according to the Centre for Cities we are the 2nd most unequal city in the UK, writes Martyn Rush, Living Wage Champion and city councillor for Barton & Sandhills.

As we enter Living Wage Week, promoting the Oxford Living Wage – currently £9.69, with next year’s figure to be announced today - is one of the keys to solving this inequality and having the wealth of the city shared more equitably.

I’m proud that Oxford City Council is taking a lead in promoting the Oxford Living Wage, and as the Council’s Living Wage Champion I am working with campaigns, unions, faith groups and employers to help make Oxford a Living Wage City.

The idea of a Living Wage grew out of faith groups and grassroots community organisers in East London in the early 2000s. The cost of living in London had by then outstripped the legal minimum wage – a situation many of Oxford’s workers would recognise.

That is why the Council agreed to support an ‘Oxford Living Wage’ – set at 95% of the London Living Wage – in 2008. Oxford City Council pays all of its workers the Oxford Living Wage and expects all of its contractors over £100,000 to do so too.

Paying a Living Wage helps a local economy – in fact the Smith Institute found in September 2018 that paying the Living Wage would boost local economies by £1bn.

It puts more money in workers’ pockets enabling them to be secure in their work and their homes – higher pay enables more sustainable and healthy choices.

Employers benefit too – a Living Wage Foundation study found that 75 per cent of Living Wage accredited businesses reported higher retention and productivity rates among their staff, whilst 86 per cent agreed it had improved the reputation of their business. 93% of employers said paying the Living Wage had benefited them.

The Council is working with local employers to help them transition to the Oxford Living Wage. The Living Wage Foundation is hoping to accredit Oxford as the country’s first ‘Living Wage City’.

However, it takes all of us – in our political parties, parish councils, school governor meetings, union branches, churches, synagogues and mosques – to form the movement that will really change things. We need to make the case that as workers we cannot afford low pay any more, and as consumers we will prioritise businesses that pay a Living Wage.

The Oxford City Living Wage Campaign is cohering these groups together to co-ordinate a collective, city-wide response and further the Council’s work.

The Council intends to launch an Oxford Living Wage accreditation scheme – so you, the citizen of Oxford, will know which businesses and employers give their workers at least a basic living rate of pay. The student campaign in Oxford University recently published a Living Wage ‘Norrington Table’ which found that, out of 44 Colleges and Private Halls, only two – Campion Hall and Blackfriars – paid the Oxford Living Wage, with a further 14 Colleges and the University itself accredited to the Living Wage Foundation.

We must work together to make the argument that our Universities and Colleges must all become ‘Oxford Living Wage Zones.’

It will take all of us – Council, students and civic campaigns working together. But Oxford must become a Living Wage City. It is the economically sound thing to do, it is the morally right thing to do, it is the socially just thing to do. It will make our city a more equal, just, healthy, sustainable place. Oxford needs a pay rise – Oxford needs the Living Wage.

- Join the campaign: www.facebook.com/OxfordLivingWageCampaign. Work with the Council to promote the Living Wage: cllrmrush@oxford.gov.uk