gair rhydd y Monday April 20th 2015 | freeword | Issue 1050
In this week’s issue: the GR General Election manifesto round-up, why students should be paid the living wage, how to write the perfect cover letter and saving the NHS
Student living wage stalled indefinitely
t Student Senate voted in favour of becoming living wage employer over 18 months ago t But Students’ Union now says it will “only” pay living wage if forced by law EXCLUSIVE Michael O’ConnellDavidson
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ardiff University Students’ Union student staff will not receive a living wage without legislative intervention, a Gair Rhydd investigation has found. Despite a successful Student Senate motion in 2013 that resolved that the Students’ Union should pay living wage to all its staff, work to extend the living wage to students has all but ceased. The minutes from the Board of Trustees meeting that reviewed this decision said that the trustees agreed with the idea in spirit, and that they would “look to introduce it in future”. But Gair Rhydd can reveal that no progress was made towards paying student staff a living wage after this meeting. This is particularly damning as the 2013/14 officer team were shortlisted
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for the NUS award for “Officer Team of the Year” in 2014, in part for “supporting the university’s introduction of the living wage,” according to a news report on the Cardiff University website. Questions now remain about why the political will to see the the living wage introduced at Cardiff University did not extend to the students of the Students’ Union. Madhura Kanade, a member of this year’s student senate, was concerned to hear that the matter had effectively been dropped by trustees. “Students should be paid the living wage if they are giving time from their studies to work and earn money. It doesn’t matter if they’re not career staff. They should be earning the same wage that everybody else is.”
“The senate is really important. We’re here to represent the student body and make decisions that benefit students. I’m not sure why the issue was dropped, but I would be very interested to see this motion taken back up to the senate.” One positive outcome of the senate meeting is that all of the Students’ Union career staff are now paid above minimum wage. But the Students’ Union’s current position on the living wage is still less progressive than the University’s, which pays all staff the living wage as standard (including casual student employees). Gair Rhydd spoke to SU President Elliot Howells, who sat as a sabbatical officer on the board in the trustees meeting that discussed the senate motion
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in 2013. In our initial contact, Howells said that the decision to introduce a living wage for students would be reviewed when the Living Wage Foundation released plans for a student living wage. However, Gair Rhydd contacted the Living Wage Foundation, and a representative said that they “had not heard of any plans to introduce a student living wage.” They added that “as students may have a range of financial situations, we would suggest that the main Living Wage is the most appropriate for employers to adopt”. A subsequent senate meeting held in February 2014 discussed an NUSprescribed student living wage, but the NUS had not announced this at the time, nor have they publicly released
Pictured:
The Taf, which employs a large number of student staff (Photographer: Greg McChesney)
Continued on page 5
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