Greater Manchester has recently set out some ambitious new plans to make the area a ‘Living Wage City Region’.
And now, it’s become the first city-region to be officially recognised for it.
Given that this week is Living Wage Week 2021, and it’s a decade from the launch of the national Real Living Wage Campaign, the region’s leader have begun making strides to ensure that employees across all 10 Greater Manchester boroughs are paid a real Living Wage and offered good contracts and working conditions, and according to GMCA, the city-region’s progress towards this target has been recognised by the Living Wage Foundation – the independent body which champions the real Living Wage based on the cost of living and which accredits employers.
GMCA explains that Greater Manchester has put in place a dedicated taskforce that works across different sectors of the economy to “engage with employers and encourage them to support our ambitions”.
“We’re proud to be the UK’s leading Living Wage City-Region,” said Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham.
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“It’s a testament to the work we’ve done across our 10 boroughs, with businesses, the VCSE sector and other organisations, to show that paying the real Living Wage is not only the right thing for communities – it’s the right thing for employers too.”
🗣 “Payment of the real Living Wage is changing lives here in Greater Manchester.”
Andy will be speaking at @PHMMcr this morning as we become the first place officially recognised by @LivingWageUK for our plans to make this a Living Wage City-Region.
— Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham (@MayorofGM) November 15, 2021
He continued: “Payment of the real Living Wage is changing lives here in Greater Manchester.
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“It’s the difference between just getting by and having a good wage that allows you to do more than simply pay the bills [and] we’ve made great progress but, with the rising cost of living felt sharply in some of the most disadvantaged places, we know there’s still a long way to go.
“That’s why we’re going to be out there this week making the compelling case for every single employer in our city-region to pay their workers the real Living Wage.”
Earlier this year, Andy Burnham established a Living Wage City-Region action group to bring together businesses, unions, local authorities, faith groups and voluntary and charitable organisations to drive forward plans.
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According to GMCA, the number of accredited Living Wage Employers has increased around threefold since the election of Andy Burnham as Mayor of Greater Manchester in 2017, with almost 384 employers in the city-region – covering around 100,000 employees – granted Living Wage Employer status, and work is now under way to increase that number to 650 in the next three years, boosting the number of workers in the city-region earning the real Living Wage.
Greater Manchester has recently set out some ambitious new plans to make the area a ‘Living Wage City Region’. / Credit: Twitter (@GMCitizens)
Currently, around 194,000 jobs in Greater Manchester – roughly 19% of all jobs in the city-region – pay less than the real Living Wage, which is the lowest since but the ambition is for all businesses in Greater Manchester to pay employees the real Living Wage and offer Living Hours contracts by 2030.
This figure is the lowest since wage level records began.
“With living costs rising so rapidly, today’s new Living Wage rates will provide thousands of workers and their families in Greater Manchester with security and stability. Alongside this, the steps Greater Manchester has taken to become a Living Wage City Region will help to lift many more out of working poverty and on to a wage that meets their everyday needs.
“We know that the Living Wage is good for businesses as well as workers, and as we rebuild our economy post pandemic, the real Living Wage will be crucial to rebuild on strong foundations.”
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You can find out more via the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) website here.
Featured Image – Flickr / Wikimedia Commons
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Luxury Manchester gym Blok confirms permanent closure after weeks of uncertainty
Daisy Jackson
Blok Manchester has announced its permanent closure, weeks after the doors to the premium fitness facility mysteriously closed.
Around a fortnight ago, members began to arrive to their classes to find the gym on Ducie Street locked up and a forfeiture notice on the door – but at the time, Blok said that it was fighting to reopen.
Sadly, in an email sent to members today, its founder has confirmed that the studio is now permanently closed.
Blok – which has several very successful sites down in London – said that its relationship with its landlord has ‘broken down to a point where trust has been lost’.
The gym wrote that it’s been left with ‘no workable way forward’.
They said: “BLOK Manchester was a space built by our loyal and dedicated community. Whether you joined us for one class or one hundred, we are deeply grateful. You helped create something genuinely special in an incredible city.”
In the immediate future, they said they’ll be supporting the team of fantastic trainers who worked here, as well as looking after members.
Members will be contacted within a few hours with options and refunds owed.
Blok Manchester has announced its permanent closure. Credit: The Manc Group
CEO and founder Ed Stanbury said: “While this marks the end of a chapter, we don’t see it as the end of our story in Manchester. We’re already speaking with developers about potential future sites and remain committed to returning to the city when the time is right.
“Thank you for being part of our story so far. Let’s shape the future of wellness. The mission continues.”
Commenting on Blok’s Instagram post – its first in almost a fortnight – people have been sharing their sadness at the closure of its Manchester site.
One person wrote: “beautiful space, beautiful staff and beautiful community.”
Another said: “Sending love to all the instructors !! :(((( gutted”
Someone else commented: “THE BEST CLASSES. I’m gutted.”
‘The average cost of a pint’ in the UK by region, according to the latest data
Danny Jones
Does it feel like pints keep getting more and more expensive almost every week at this point? Yes. Yes, it does, and while you can’t expect a city as big as Manchester to be one of the cheapest places to get one in the UK, we do often wonder how it compares to other parts of the country.
Well, as it happens, someone has recently crunched the numbers for us across the nation, breaking down which regions pay the most and the least for their pints.
The data has been examined by business management consultancy firm, CGA Strategy, using artificial intelligence and information from the latest Retail Price Index figures to find out what the ‘average cost of a pint’ is down south, up North and everywhere in between.
While the latest statistics provided by the group aren’t granular enough to educate us on Greater Manchester’s pint game exactly, we can show you how our particular geographic region is looking on the leaderboard at the moment.
That’s right, we Mancunians and the rest of the North West are technically joint mid-table when it comes to the lowest average cost of a pint, sharing the places from 3rd to 8th – according to CGA, anyway.
Powered by consumer intelligence company, NIQ (NielsenIQ) – who also use AI and the latest technology to deliver their insights – we can accept it might seem like it’s been a while since you’ve paid that little for a pint, especially in the city centre, but these are the stats they have published.
Don’t shoot the messenger, as they say; unless, of course, they’re trying to rob you blind for a bev. Fortunately, we’ve turned bargain hunting at Manchester bars into a sport at this point.
We might not boast the lowest ‘average’ pint cost in the UK, but we still have some bloody good places to keep drinking affordable.
London tops the charts (pretends to be shocked)
While some of you may have scratched your eyes at the supposed average pint prices here in the North West, it won’t surprise any of you to see that London leads the way when it came to the most expensive pint when it came to average cost in the UK.
To be honest, £5.44 doesn’t just sound cheap but virtually unheard of these days.
CGA has it that the average cost of a beer in the British capital is actually down 15p from its price last September, but as we all know, paying upwards of £7 for a pint down that end of the country is pretty much par for the course the closer you get to London.
Yet more reason you can be glad you live around here, eh? And in case you thought you were leaving this article with very little, think again…
Emily Sergeant -
16th November 2021 
