Earlier this year the Students’ Union teamed up with our local Unison branch to tackle a problem that was affecting many of our cleaning, catering and caretaking staff. We discovered a huge number of the staff, which people take for granted every day, at College were being paid a wage that meant they could not afford to provide for themselves or their families. Earlier that year we had developed a good relationship between the Union and Unison due to a collaborative demonstration in the City centre and we wanted to build those links to combat this pay issues and win change for staff at the College.

Students’ Union officers had attended a NUS/Citizen UK “Living Wage” Master Class earlier in the year and felt they had the skills and knowledge to tackle this issue and that students would support the initiative. Our Vice-President at the time, Joshua Rowlands, organised a meeting with our Unison branch steward, Stephen Riby. They sat down to discuss how they could take this campaign forward. The actions that came out were to collate the information of how many members of staff were paid below the living wage. At the time 74 staff members earned 45p less than the recommended £7.20/hour and are the worst hit with low wages and high costs. Many of these were students working for the college in areas such as night cleaning. Together we felt we had a prime duty to help fight for the living wage at the College for the staff who were most in need. The joint force of the Students’ Union and Unison really made our senior management team take notice.

Joshua was also elected as a Student Governor which gave us another angle to highlight these low wages and show the powers that be, how a small change could really improve the lives of so many of our staff. After petitioning staff around the College and advertising the lower wages we got to discuss these issues with Human Resources and the Principal. Having both the Unions arguing the same point made it very hard for the management to deny this change and after a presentation showing the living wage effects, the senior management team decided to put the idea forward to the Corporation Committee. This reported back just before the start of our new academic year, and the news was that the Living Wage recommendations would be adopted and improved on across the College. This meant that instantly those 74 members of staff were pushed up on to a wage of £7.35, which is 15p more than the recommended living wage. Now all new appointments will be paid at least the Living wage, but we will keep an eye on how the living wage increases with inflation and make sure the College honour their commitment.

The Union has benefited from stronger relationships with both Unison and the UCU branches at the College due to this success. We are now recognised as an organisation that fights for all part of the College even if it is not directly our members. Due to our strong relationship with the UCU we held a “teach out” for the NUS “Another EMA is Possible” campaign and we will maintain these strong links and create more joint campaigns, later this year.

Nationally we have also gained recognition for this campaign and we are proud to champion not only the living wage, but collaborative work with other local Unions. Joshua Rowlands also met with Rt Hon David Milliband MP to be recognised for our work and continue the campaign for a national living wage as an extension of our local work. Josh discussed the scheme for fairer pay with the former Shadow Foreign Secretary at his reception at Millbank. They spoke about the work Canterbury College has done to support the Living Wage.

This campaign had many strengths;

• The relationship between the two Unions bringing students and staff together on the same issue. Having researched data to back up our issues that we could use to gain more support and show this to the College management.
• Having Students and Staff on the Governing board fighting this issue gave pressure from the top.

We had good coverage in our local newspapers, through Unison newsletters and the NUS Society and Citizenship committee. After the event we were recognised on the College website as they featured it as a main news story and we also got coverage through websites and local newspapers for our work with David Milliband.