Here at Nestlé we’ve become the first FMCG company to become a Living Wage employer in the UK. It’s an achievement that we’re proud of, but our confectionery division has a long history of involvement in not just the Living Wage movement, but also the fight against in-work poverty.
In the UK the Living Wage is set by the Living Wage Foundation and calculated by the Centre for Research in Social Policy at Loughborough University. They’re doing pioneering work, but they’re not the first organisation to calculate a living wage in this country; they’re actually following in the footsteps of one of our past company chairmen.
Seebohm Rowntree and his father were both passionate about the idea of finding and tackling the root causes of poverty. In 1899 Seebohm, with his training as a scientist, decided to investigate poverty in an analytical way. Seebohm hired a group of proto-social workers and sent them to interview every family in York that didn’t have a servant, to find out what life was like for working-class people.
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