Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+

Personnel Today

Register
Log in
Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+

Latest NewsRetailPay & benefitsLiving Wage

Will the Waterstones Living Wage petition make a difference?

by Ashleigh Webber 10 Apr 2019
by Ashleigh Webber 10 Apr 2019

Waterstones staff campaigning for the “real” Living Wage have delivered a petition with more than 9,000 signatures to the bookseller’s flagship Piccadilly store this week. But will putting pressure on the company see them get the pay they want? And should other retailers take note?

The campaign – which has been backed by authors including Kerry Hudson, David Nicholls and Nina Caplan – asks managing director James Daunt to pay all booksellers a “starting” Living Wage of £9 or £10.55 in Greater London.

Low pay

‘Wages worth third less in some areas than decade ago’: TUC

Pay staff the ‘real’ Living Wage, investors urge FTSE 250 firms

The Living Wage, a voluntary rate encouraged by campaign group the Living Wage Foundation, takes into account the cost of living and is in excess of the national living wage (currently £8.21 for over 25s).

The petition argues that offering a rate of pay below this suggested, but not mandatory, amount results in booksellers who are “stressed, preoccupied and have little spare time and energy to devote to buying books, reading them and keeping up with news and trends in the industry”, which it claims are integral to their role.

The staff have also presented the company with a self-published book that includes anonymous accounts of the effect low pay has on their day-to-day lives and careers. It reveals many have missed meals or have been forced to choose between food or bills at the end of the month as their wages have not stretched far enough to cover their living costs.

One worker suggested they were deterred from seeking a management position at the company because they felt the pay would not compensate for the additional responsibility.

“I actually had to leave my first full-time Waterstones position because I simply couldn’t afford to pay my rent and keep myself fed and healthy. I then had to move back in with my dad in a new town where I knew no one,” claims one worker.

Another says: “I should be able to get the bus to work instead of walking when the weather is bad. I should be able to branch out and have something different than the cheapest can of beans on toast.”

Should other retailers take note?

Waterstones is not the only employer that should be considering whether to increase staff pay and the the is not limited to booksellers. According to analysis from Incomes Data Research, high street retail employees earn a median hourly wage of £7.89.

Many retailers have committed to increasing wages – 125 have become an accredited Living Wage employer, according to the Living Wage Foundation, including brands such as Ikea, Lush and Majestic Wine.

Journalist and author Nina Caplan suggested the petition might encourage other organisations involved in the sale of books – including Amazon, which sells thousands of physical and digital books every year – to improve the conditions in which their staff work.

“Amazon should step up to its responsibilities as a major employer. The Living Wage is supposed to be a baseline not a target. But that doesn’t absolve Waterstones, a UK institution where practically every English graduate I know worked early in their career, and which nurtured a generation of future independent booksellers, from their responsibilities,” she told Personnel Today.

“If they behave well, that’s a tiny bit more leverage we have to make a behemoth like Amazon behave better.”

Despite criticism of its working conditions, Amazon is making some attempt to address staff welfare. Last year it increased workers’ pay to £9.50 across the UK and £10.50 in London – which at the time was in excess of the Living Wage. But its profits are vast compared to what a business like Waterstones is able to achieve.

Affording wage increases

Waterstones returned to profit in 2016 after almost a decade of turbulence, and many argue that some of this should be used to fund wage increases for its staff. Indeed, Daunt has previously indicated that he was aiming for “a progressing pay structure based on a floor of the real Living Wage”, but said the company could not yet afford the estimated £5m in additional wage costs.

Following the petition’s launch, Daunt told The Guardian that he “wouldn’t for one second suggest that a career in bookselling is a career paved in gold” but suggested that staff must be rewarded appropriately, mainly with “a stimulating job”.

However, one staff member said in response: “Nobody’s asking for a ‘road paved in gold’; we’re asking to not having to choose between shoes and food at the end of the month.”

A number of high-profile authors are also asking Waterstones to suitably remunerate the “skill, expertise and passion” that staff bring to their roles. Lowborn author Kerry Hudson, among those who wrote an open letter to Daunt, said she was shocked that payment of the Living Wage was not standard at Waterstones.

If they behave well, that’s a tiny bit more leverage we have to make a behemoth like Amazon behave better,” – Nina Caplan, author

“While I appreciate there are many complexities in running a business it feels that leaving those doing the frontline work that is the foundation of the business to choose between, as one ex-staff member told me, ‘food and bus fares’, cannot be right,” she said.

But could inflating pay at a business like Waterstones, which might currently be unable to afford to do so, increase the risk job-losses, reduced hours or shop closures? In their letter, the authors themselves admit that an organisation that can’t offer a Living Wage without redundancies or reducing hours does not have a viable business model, indicating that doing so might bring back past financial problems.

Hudson said Waterstones should at least make a commitment to increasing staff pay in future: “If it is not possible at this time is would be great to see a real and public commitment to becoming a Living Wage Employer in a fixed period of time.”

Waterstones had not commented at the time of publication, but Daunt told the BBC that some staff received a pay rise in September.

“It’s not that we’re making no progress. It’s not that we’re making enough progress. It’s that we’re making the progress we think we can afford.”

Sign up to our weekly round-up of HR news and guidance

Receive the Personnel Today Direct e-newsletter every Wednesday

OptOut
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

“Turning this business round has been a tough old slog in a very, very competitive market. But hand on heart, we are doing what we can,” he said.

Daunt’s stance suggests the petition is unlikely to result in staff receiving a pay increase overnight, but the publicity surrounding it might encourage Waterstones, and other retailers, to consider working towards becoming a Living Wage employer.

Ashleigh Webber

Ashleigh is a former editor of OHW+ and former HR and wellbeing editor at Personnel Today. Ashleigh's areas of interest include employee health and wellbeing, equality and inclusion and skills development. She has hosted many webinars for Personnel Today, on topics including employee retention, financial wellbeing and menopause support.

previous post
Government opens consultation on £95,000 cap on public sector exit payments
next post
Pimlico’s Charlie Mullins: Gig economy reform needed, but don’t vilify us

1 comment

Ted 10 Apr 2019 - 11:32 am

If you cant afford to pay your staff a proper wage, you should not be in business

Comments are closed.

You may also like

UK sees large rise in number of low...

27 Feb 2025

Lidl announces pay rise from March 2025

11 Feb 2025

Top 10 HR questions October 2024: National living...

1 Nov 2024

National living wage increase of 6.7% confirmed

29 Oct 2024

Living Wage rate increases to £12.60 an hour

23 Oct 2024

More than 2m left with less than £10...

15 Oct 2024

Card Factory blames soaring wages for profits plunge

24 Sep 2024

National living wage for 18 to 20-year-olds to...

30 Jul 2024

Living Wage employers hit 15,000

10 Jul 2024

Aldi raises staff pay again in 2024

13 Mar 2024

  • 2025 Employee Communications Report PROMOTED | HR and leadership...Read more
  • The Majority of Employees Have Their Eyes on Their Next Move PROMOTED | A staggering 65%...Read more
  • Prioritising performance management: Strategies for success (webinar) WEBINAR | In today’s fast-paced...Read more
  • Self-Leadership: The Key to Successful Organisations PROMOTED | Eletive is helping businesses...Read more
  • Retaining Female Talent: Four Ways to Reduce Workplace Drop Out PROMOTED | International Women’s Day...Read more

Personnel Today Jobs
 

Search Jobs

PERSONNEL TODAY

About us
Contact us
Browse all HR topics
Email newsletters
Content feeds
Cookies policy
Privacy policy
Terms and conditions

JOBS

Personnel Today Jobs
Post a job
Why advertise with us?

EVENTS & PRODUCTS

The Personnel Today Awards
The RAD Awards
Employee Benefits
Forum for Expatriate Management
OHW+
Whatmedia

ADVERTISING & PR

Advertising opportunities
Features list 2025

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Linkedin


© 2011 - 2025 DVV Media International Ltd

Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+