Everton football club, Liverpool Council, and Liverpool John Moores University are all employers who have signed onto a campaign aiming to improve working conditions in the Liverpool city region.
The Fair Employment Charter was launched earlier this year by Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram with employers who sign up bound to certain commitments such as trade union engagement, getting rid of zero hours contracts, improving diversity, and paying the real living wage of £10.90 an hour.
57 companies have signed onto the scheme with a further 85 in talks and Mayor Rotheram saying the number of employees impacted already was “in the hundreds if not thousands.” Currently a quarter of the workforce in the city region are paid below the real living wage.
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He said: “It’s been fairly positive though there are real tensions for employers and companies in a post-Brexit and a post-Covid world. We understand them and have recognised that in the way we’ve approached this.”
Mr Rotheram said the charter is to encourage businesses to invest in their workers, develop skills and keep people in the business. He was speaking at an event at Tappers Distillery and Bar in Wirral - one of the first businesses to join the scheme.
He said they had approached businesses about what they could commit to but said there was evidence that if workforces were treated fairly and appropriately, “you get a better return on the investment of your workforce and the churn is less so.
“The proof of the pudding is if you ask the good companies who have got people who've worked there for many many years, that’s saving them money on training.”
He said the Liverpool City Region would consider whether companies were signed up to the charter when deciding funding grants in the future too, adding “we will weigh some of their application on whether they are an ethical business and treating workforces fairly.”
Tappers Distillery was one of the first companies to be certified. It started up in 2016 and signed up to the charter in May this year. It employs six people and produces a wide range of gins with the botanicals used in the gin sourced from the Wirral coastline.
Steve Tapril, founder and manager of the company, said they had only seen one employee leave since they started six years ago, adding “I’ve always held the principles of fair employment to heart with what we do and we’ve never had zero hours contracts. It’s not what we do and I don’t think we’d get the right people here.
“It’s highly skilled work, it’s manual work and we need employees who are skilled at it and have a passion for what they do. If they don’t have that passion, they’re not going to be good at what they do.
“It’s fair pay for fair work. There’s so much at stake with what we do. We have to adhere to food safety standards, we have to adhere to health and safety. If we were to underpay or there was resentment as a result of pay, those things would be compromised.”
One employee, Beth, who’d been working there for a year, said she joined the company because of its reputation for being a good company adding, “I am always learning something which is great.”
Mr Tapril said he’s been able to grow the business while paying higher wages. He added: “We’re small and we’ve been able to do this. The difference between the minimum wage and the living wage is really so small that even across large organisations I can’t see that being the make or break.
“I think if a business is going to struggle financially to pay the difference, there’s other issues at hand there.”
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