Published: 3 April, 2015
by WILLIAM McLENNAN

CAMPAIGNERS looking to end the “poverty pay” wages of school dinner ladies say it is unfair that workers doing the same job in neighbouring boroughs are earning £2,600 a year more.

Camden’s school kitchen staff, employed by Caterlink as part of a £3.4million-a-year contract handed out by the Town Hall, are demanding a rise from £6.60 an hour.

They told a meeting of all Camden councillors last month that they are struggling to make ends meet and are left with nothing but jacket potatoes to feed their families. 

It was revealed this week that the company’s employees in Islington have been earning the London living wage – which currently stands at £9.15 an hour – for four years. Councillors on that side of the borough boundary refused to consider awarding a contract to a firm that did not pay the higher wage during negotiations in 2010. 

The decision means that, based on an average 20-hour week, kitchen staff in Islington are around £10,000 better off per person today than their colleagues in Camden. 

One Caterlink employee, who works in a Camden school and asked not be named, said: “It’s very unfair. They’re our neighbours and they do exactly the same job as us. If I had that money I wouldn’t be in debt and I wouldn’t have to be out looking for a second job.”

Camden Unison secretary George Binette, who has been supporting Caterlink staff in their campaign, said the Islington deal “casts still further doubt over Caterlink’s claim that the London living wage is somehow unaffordable in Camden”.

Meanwhile, HolroydHowe, an offshoot of Caterlink’s parent company, Westbury Street Holdings, which works exclusively in independent schools, is looking for “catering assistants”, who will earn £7.37 an hour to serve up lunches at a Catholic preparatory school in nearby St John’s Wood. 

The current Town Hall deal was agreed before Camden Council ann­ounced its commitment to become a living wage borough in 2012.

Council leader Sarah Hayward said: “Given the scale of the cuts we’ve faced this is no small challenge – but we will achieve it because it’s the right thing to do.”

Demonstrators say either the council or the company should make up the pay shortfall while dinner ladies wait for the catering contract to be re-negotiated.

Earlier this month Caterlink bosses met Cllr Hayward and chief executive Mike Cooke as pressure mounted to pay kitchen staff the London living wage.

Cllr Hayward said last week there was “not a tangible outcome,” but Caterlink had not ruled out introducing the higher wage before the contract ends in March 2016.