The UK Living Wage Campaign: Experiences of Employers, Workers and Advocates

Carson, Calum (2021) The UK Living Wage Campaign: Experiences of Employers, Workers and Advocates. PhD thesis, University of Leeds.

Abstract

This thesis examines the impact on the UK employment landscape of the UK Living Wage campaign, and the campaign’s role as an industrial relations actor within Britain. The project’s focus ranges from a national exploration of how higher wages and improved working conditions are fought for in the twenty-first century, to the organisational impact of the adoption of the Living Wage for employers, to the impact that being paid the Living Wage has on the professional and personal lives of the workers that receive them. Through 85 semi-structured, in-depth qualitative interviews with campaigners, Living Wage Employers, workers, and leaders and advocates of the wider Living Wage movement, this thesis contributes to the existing literature base through its identification of a number of key insights at separate levels of the campaign. These include an exploration of the personal motivations of decisionmakers within firms that voluntarily decide to adopt the Living Wage; the wider impact of these decisions on an organisation, and their workers; and the evolution of the UK Living Wage campaign itself. When taken together, these insights help to explain the existence, facilitation, and impact of the campaign on the British employment landscape, and on the campaign’s wider role as an industrial relations actor. This thesis argues that the UK Living Wage movement demonstrates a significant evolution of how higher pay and improved working conditions are campaigned for and regulated across the UK labour market and industrial relations landscape, as the role of traditional trade unions continues to be challenged through the growing involvement of civil society organisations, as well as illustrating the changing norms of what constitutes corporate social responsibility in the twenty-first century.