Arsenal are one of the worst clubs in the Premier League when it comes to paying their employees a living wage.
Citizens UK have published their living wage league table, which shows how much Premier League football clubs pay their workers.
Today, we publish our #livingwage league table. It shows just how far some wealthy football clubs have to go to pay a fair wage to all staff pic.twitter.com/FNflCcPqYf
— Citizens UK (@CitizensUK) October 27, 2017
Disappointingly, Arsenal are second to bottom. The lowest wage the Gunners pay their employees is £7.00 per hour. That’s 50p below minimum wage for workers over the age of 25 and far too little for a London-based club, where the living wage is currently £9.75 per hour.
It’s especially embarrassing as the Gunners’ 2015/16 turnover was £354m.
Chelsea are actually the only London club who pay their employees the London Living Wage. West Ham also do but their stadium operator is responsible for sub-contracted staff.
Everton are the only other team to meet their area’s Living Wage (£8.45).
That’s two clubs out of 20.
Watford are at the bottom of the table, as their lowest-paid workers get a measly £6.50 per hour. To be earning this little, you’d have to be under the age of 24. Their 2015/16 turnover was £94m.
Almost as bad are Liverpool, who pay as little as £7.05 per hour with a turnover of £302m, and Manchester United who pay the same but boasted the Premier League’s highest turnover for 2015/16. £515m.
It’s not good enough, is it?
[Edit – When this issue was raised before, Arsenal said that these were wages paid by third-party contractors they hired.
In 2015, an Arsenal spokesperson said, “We pay all our people good rates which are above the London Living Wage. This includes permanent and fixed term employees and workers. As an example, match day stewards are paid £9.50p an hour. This means that rates for all our employees already exceed the Government’s 2020 national living wage target. It also goes beyond the Premier League’s recent resolution which we fully supported.
“In terms of third party contractors, pay conditions form part of our renewal discussions as those contracts come up for renewal. Our recent maintenance contract with CBRE, for example, contains an undertaking by CBRE that their employees are paid at least the London Living Wage.
“Pay conditions will form a part of the discussion when our cleaning contract comes up for renewal and are included in on-going discussions with our caterers.”
Arsenal have enough power that they can force contractors to pay their staff fairly or they can refuse to do business with them. Despite their strong words two years ago, it seems they have not, perhaps, been paying as much attention to this issue as they should.]