Keynes Hall at King’s was packed yesterday for a Living Wage rally organised jointly by Cambridge Universities Labour Club and CUSU Women’s Campaign. Over 120 people heard Heather Wakefield from UNISON, Tom Chigbo from Citizens UK, Kayte Lawton from IPPR, Priya Kothari from Save the Children and Daniel Zeichner from Cambridge Labour discuss the Living Wage.

While others concentrated on the national issues, Daniel detailed the  campaigning done in Cambridge over the last few years and celebrated the various successes, including getting both the City Council and some colleges to commit to paying a Living Wage. He warned that there is much more to do and issued a rallying call to make Cambridge a Living Wage City:

“Even now we find that the Lib Dem City Council is failing to pay out-sourced staff the Living Wage, the same is true of most colleges in the University and out-sourced staff at ARU, while the Conservative led County Council has almost a thousand below the living wage. The private sector is arguably worse, with super-rich Microsoft continuing to use state support to subsidise low pay. This rally showed that many young people in Cambridge support calls for a Living Wage City, and Labour will be at the heart of that campaign.”