THE Town Hall has unveiled a new policy where no council worker will be paid less than £20,000 a year.

The minimum earnings guarantee – announced three days after the public sector strike over low pay – will come into effect in 2018.

Council leader Sarah Hayward said Camden was “leading the way” in implementing fair pay schemes and finance chief Theo Blackwell said it was about recognising “the value of paying employees a decent wage”.

Unison has broadly welcomed the policy saying it would take around 250 of its members “significantly above” the London Living Wage threshold – which is set at £8.80 an hour. 

Around 200 of the lowest paid school staff and 46 staff in the Town Hall will have their pay improved, according to Camden Unison secretary George Binette.

He said: “The devil will be in the detail with this and we need greater clarification about what this means. 

“But it should make a difference for the lowest paid, and so it is a welcome development. It does not address our wider concerns about poverty pay and living standards. We hope that we will not see Camden Council focusing its efforts only on the lowest paid.” 

He said concerns about poverty were being raised with the union from people earning more than £35,000 – a situation that was “unthinkable” five years ago, he said.

On Thursday, Camden workers rallied outside the Town Hall in Judd Street before leaving to join the main march from the BBC headquarters in Regent Street to hear the speakers in Trafalgar Square.

The GMB, PCS, Unite, Unison and NUT unions had called a joint strike and the Fire Brigades Union also joined the day of protest, bringing up the rear of the march with a fire truck carrying a dozen Camden Unison staff and blaring out the Prodigy’s 1990s Fire­starter music single.

Frances O’Grady, the general secretary of the Trades Union Congress, had that morning posed for photos with staff at the housing and adult social care department in Bidborough House and Accessible Transport Solutions in York Way Depot, King’s Cross, on two Camden picket lines. 

She warned that hundreds of thousands of people were sending a clear message to government that “enough is enough”. 

She said: “Across the public sector workers are on strike today to say enough is enough. Year after year pay has failed to keep up with the cost of living. Public sector workers are on average more than £2,000 worse off under this government.”

In Camden, 45 primary and secondary schools, most libraries and council-run services were shut but it was business as usual at the UCL Academy which had enough staff who are not NUT members to keep the school open. 

Two new free schools, also independent of the local authority, also managed to stay open. 

Of the 1,500 teachers in Camden, around 1,200 are in the National Union of Teachers, according to secretary of Camden NUT Andrew Baisley.

Last month, Camden Unison got 52 new members.