We call on the board at John Lewis to pay the Living Wage to cleaners working at John Lewis shops and offices.

The Issue

The Living Wage is an hourly rate calculated according to the basic cost of living in the UK. It currently stands at £8.25 in the UK and £9.40 in London (in comparison with the minimum wage of £6.70.) 2000 companies are accredited living wage employers, including KPMG, Nationwide, the Royal Opera House and Tate & Lyle London Offices and Oliver Bonas. John Lewis is the UK’s leading retailer and last Christmas/New Year enjoyed a hugely profitable period with the highest market share in the retail sector. Following this, John Lewis staff received 11% bonus payments. John Lewis brands itself as a company that is committed to treating its suppliers, customers and partners with fairness. But it has contracted out its cleaning services. Its cleaners receive less than the living wage and are not entitled to the bonus payments paid to directly employed staff.There is growing concern that increasing inequality in UK is damaging to the whole of society. Given John Lewis’s impressive profit levels, it is very troubling that it refuses to show moral leadership and pay its cleaners the living wage. 
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Jane LambertPetition Starter
Media enquiries
This petition had 149,567 supporters

The Issue

The Living Wage is an hourly rate calculated according to the basic cost of living in the UK. It currently stands at £8.25 in the UK and £9.40 in London (in comparison with the minimum wage of £6.70.) 2000 companies are accredited living wage employers, including KPMG, Nationwide, the Royal Opera House and Tate & Lyle London Offices and Oliver Bonas. John Lewis is the UK’s leading retailer and last Christmas/New Year enjoyed a hugely profitable period with the highest market share in the retail sector. Following this, John Lewis staff received 11% bonus payments. John Lewis brands itself as a company that is committed to treating its suppliers, customers and partners with fairness. But it has contracted out its cleaning services. Its cleaners receive less than the living wage and are not entitled to the bonus payments paid to directly employed staff.There is growing concern that increasing inequality in UK is damaging to the whole of society. Given John Lewis’s impressive profit levels, it is very troubling that it refuses to show moral leadership and pay its cleaners the living wage. 
avatar of the starter
Jane LambertPetition Starter
Media enquiries

The Decision Makers

John Lewis Partnership
John Lewis Partnership
Responded
“Thank you for your interest in this important issue. Fair pay is one of the core principles of the John Lewis Partnership and we share the Living Wage campaign’s objectives to pay employees fairly. We achieve that, however, through different means. Our policy is to pay the market rate for a job and as much above that as can be justified by performance. On top of that our Partners receive a share of our profits as well as other benefits such as a final salary pension (after a qualifying period). In relation to cleaning, with a few historical exceptions, the majority of cleaners who work in our branches are, as with almost every company, contractors. Most work for more than one company, often on the same day.  Like all retailers we work with many different contractors of various kinds throughout our supply chain. We could not operate effectively if all our contractors were Partners. We take our responsibilities to all our suppliers and contractors very seriously. We expect them to uphold good employment standards. We have made a number of improvements to the definition of those standards recently, including improved processes around contract placement and contractor management. However, we do not believe it is right for us to insist our suppliers or managing agents adopt pay policies that are different to our own by setting base pay levels well above the market rate. ”
The management board of John Lewis
The management board of John Lewis
Chairman
Rachel Osborne
Rachel Osborne
Board Member
Paula Nickolds
Paula Nickolds
Board Member
Andrew Murphy
Andrew Murphy
Board Member
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Petition created on 6 June 2014