Where are their goals?

Only 10 of the 50 biggest employers in Scotland said they pay all staff working for them the living wage, according to the BBC.

The living wage is a voluntary hourly rate that is calculated according to the basic cost of living in the UK. At £7.85 an hour, it is 21% higher than the legally-set minimum wage of £6.50.

Most Scottish Premiership football clubs were paying some of their off-pitch staff less than the living wage. Celtic, in particular, has been pressed on why it has not introduced it. A group of fans lodged a resolution at the club's AGM last year, on behalf of shareholders, asking the club to implement the Living Wage. The chief executive of Celtic, Peter Lawwell, has a pay package worth nearly £1m a year.

Peter Kelly from the Poverty Alliance, which promotes the living wage, told the programme that the clubs needed to do more. He said: "It's really unacceptable, I mean we would say the same about the majority of businesses in any other sector not paying the living wage - we really think that they can. "These are clubs that are leaders very often in their communities. They need to be showing leadership in terms of pay as well, there's a lot more they could be doing."

ABERDEEN Rate starts at £6.50 although there is some progression. Below Living Wage

CELTIC The BBC was told Celtic employ their own staff for hospitality and pay them £6.70 an hour. Team member visited a Celtic FC club store on Argyle Street and discovered from an assistant manager and two store associates that they are paid just above minimum wage at £6.70 an hour. Below Living Wage

DUNDEE UNITED The BBC was told wages are "not far off minimum wage." Below Living Wage

HAMILTON Representative said work was at minimum wage (he guessed that at £6.51). Below Living Wage

MOTHERWELL Bar work sometimes available. The wage is between £6.58 and £7.00 - offered to take a CV. Below Living Wage

PARTICK THISTLE Partick Thistle confirmed bar work is minimum wage - happy to take a CV. Below Living Wage

ST JOHNSTONE Confirmed there are vacancies at minimum wage, paid hourly. Below Living Wage

Who are scoring the goals?

In Scotland, there are approximately 414,000 people currently paid below the Living Wage.

Heart of Midlothian Football Club has become the first football club in Scotland to become an officially accredited Living Wage Employer. The move will see all staff employers at the club paid the Living Wage. The Living Wage was uprated to £7.85 per hour in November, £1.35 per hour more than the National Minimum Wage.

Peter Kelly, Director of the Poverty Alliance, said: 

“Congratulations to Heart of Midlothian on becoming Scotland's first Living Wage Accredited football club.  We are delighted that Heart of Midlothian will pay all staff who work at the club the Living Wage, and that they have opted to have their commitment to the Living Wage recognised through the accreditation mark. This is an important step forward for the campaign to end poverty pay in Scotland. Almost two in three children in poverty in Scotland live in a household where someone works, and the Living Wage is a vital tool in lifting people out of in work poverty. Football clubs have an important role in communities across Scotland. With thousands of people turning out every week to support their local clubs, they can play an important leadership role, not only for fans but for the businesses they work with. I hope that more clubs will follow Heart of Midlothian's example but not only giving their staff a pay rise this Christmas, but by showing real leadership on this issue on and off the pitch.”

Chelsea FC has become the first English football club to be accredited as a Living Wage Employer. At the same time the club will also start the process of ensuring staff of external contractors will also receive the Living Wage for working at Stamford Bridge, Cobham training ground and all areas where the club operates. Chelsea will also ensure any additional agency employees not currently meeting the criteria to recieve the Living Wage will also get the same rates of pay.

In contrast, in the Observer, Kevin McKenna writes:

“Last month, Celtic, the richest sporting organisation in Scotland, had to be dragged screaming and protesting by its own fans to a decision to pay the living wage to its full-time employees. The club still refused to budge on a similar rate for its hundreds of part-time workers and was still bleating about remaining competitive and not allowing its wage policy to be influenced by a third party (the Living Wage Foundation). This club was established by poor people for poor people and receives loyal backing still from many poor people. The entire board of directors, a gentrified assortment of CV-embellishers, ought to be made to resign"

The Hoops seek Loop-holes

Ten days ago, at Celtic's annual general meeting a motion by the Celtic Trust calling for Celtic to ensure that each of its employees is paid the living wage of £7.45 per hour rather than the minimum wage of £6.31 per hour was thrown out by the rich men and money-changers who hold sway at Celtic Park. Jeanette Findlay of the trust stated during the debate that preceded this act of corporate and social irresponsibility that it was a decision that "shamed you and shamed us". Two of the three main reasons cited by the club for rejecting the living wage proposal were these: that it would cost £500,000 annually to implement, and that no other British club does it. Lest we forget; in the last two seasons, Celtic have spent around £10m on fees and wages for three strikers .

Celtic support still occupies the lowest rung of Britain's socioeconomic ladder. Its bedrock is in neighbourhoods of Glasgow's East End and Lanarkshire where the indicators of poverty and illness are among the highest in Europe. Many of those who are in work will be labouring for barely the national minimum wage. A top-up to the living wage would make a considerable improvement in their lives. This winter,they will encounter fuel poverty and food shortages. Many will need hand-outs from the increasing number of food banks in Glasgow. Yet, and let's be frank here, the so-called living wage isn't really a wage to live on at all.

The Living Wage Foundation calculates that it is the minimum required to allow a person to rent property, run a car and eat healthily. But then you might choose to include factors such as the ruthless exploitation by some landlords of the shortage of social housing, the extortion of the energy cartel, the vagaries of petrol prices and the onerous taxes on cigarettes and alcohol. A family of two parents and two children cannot survive on £7.45 an hour.

Celtic's group revenue increased by 47.7% to £75.82m this year and its profit before tax was £9.74m. The remuneration of its chief executive, Peter Lawwell, was £999,591. The members of the plc board each receive a £25,000 emolument for the onerous task of attending monthly board meetings and travelling all over Europe first class. They include Dermot Desmond, one of Britain's richest men, and Brian Wilson, the former Labour minister. (See here for list of directors)

Celtic FC  is a business, as is Rangers FC which also emerged from the Glasgow working class. Neither club has any connection to its origin any more. Bread and circuses and football is the circus. Football clubs are business designed to take money from the poor and give it to the rich, Celtic are no different. They are ideal for lining the pockets of the board.

Taken from here 

More pay restraint ahead

CBI Scotland has urged the Scottish Parliament not to support a living wage.

CBI Scotland's senior policy executive Lauren Paterson said: "Pay restraint has played an important role in supporting current levels of employment...Pay restraint is set to continue with containing labour costs cited as the second-highest workforce priority for businesses in the next 12 months...decisions on pay must be left at the discretion of the individual business, taking into account their wider business strategy, including affordability."

Dave Watson, Scottish organiser of Unison, said: "One of the primary causes of the longest and deepest recession for a generation has been the shift from wages into profits...It's the fat-cat pay of the CBI bosses that is out of control."

Britain's workers are suffering the most protracted squeeze on their incomes since the long depression of the 1870s and are now well into their fourth year of falling real wages. High inflation and stagnant pay for many workers mean that real wages have now fallen for 40 months, according to calculations by the TUC. It says that is the longest such stretch of financial pain since 1875 to 1878, when the world economy was mired in the so-called long depression.

Economists say there is little prospect of wages outstripping inflation any time soon. TUC senior economist Duncan Weldon said: "At the very, very best it will be mid-2014 and even then it will take lots of time to make up the lost ground."