We are delighted to announce that we have joined the Living Wage network and are now accredited as a Living Wage Employer.
This Living Wage commitment will see everyone working at Scary Little Girls receive a minimum hourly wage of £12.60. This is higher than the government minimum for over 21s, which currently stands at £11.44 per hour.
In the face of persistent inequality of access to work in the arts, with working class creatives being ‘blocked’ from entering the creative industries, we had already committed to this ethos and have been paying at a living wage level – but the accreditation adds an official stamp to one of our core values. In the South West, over a tenth of all jobs (11.8%) pay less than the real Living Wage – around 285,000 jobs.
Pleasingly, this accreditation happened during the month when Cornwall was announced as a Living Wage Place – a signal that the business community in our region is leading the way in supporting a higher standard of living for employees.
The Real Living Wage is the only rate calculated according to the costs of living. It provides a voluntary benchmark for employers that wish to ensure their staff earn a wage they can live on, not just the government minimum. Since it began, the Living Wage movement has delivered a pay rise to nearly half a million people and put £3.5 billion extra into the pockets of low paid workers.
Rebecca Mordan, artistic director and co-founder of Scary Little Girls, said: “This is an important milestone for our company and one we’ve been committed to achieving. We work with over 100 artists and freelancers every year, and we want to make sure that we’re paying our staff enough to make ends meet. Times are hard, and we value every single person we work with – and want to make sure they know that. To us, it’s only right that we commit to paying them the Real Living Wage.”
Katherine Chapman, Director of the Living Wage Foundation said: “We’re delighted that Scary Little Girls has joined the movement of over 15,000 responsible employers across the UK who voluntarily commit to go further than the government minimum to make sure all their staff earn enough to live on.
“They join thousands of small businesses as well as household names such as Burberry, Everton Football Club and many more. These businesses recognise that paying the real Living Wage is the mark of a responsible employer and they, like Scary Little Girls, believe that a hard day’s work deserves a fair day’s pay.”
Read the full press release here and see how this was reported on by Rewind Radio here and The Cornish Times here.
