The Metropolis

David Cohen of the Standard nails UCL president over poverty wages paid to cleaners

Darren Atwater | Friday 24 September, 2010 14:38

The Evening Standard has never really been considered the People’s friend but man, did David Cohen gets a great story on the front page.

University College London is the only Bloomsbury university that does not pay its cleaners the London living wage (£7.85) instead paying the minimum wage of £5.80.

So when Cohen confronted president Malcolm Grant, who at £404,000 is the second-highest paid university head in the nation, including Oxford and Cambridge, about this, Grant had this to say: “I am advised that paying contract cleaners the living wage would cost UCL £500,000 to £1 million a year. That’s a big slug. And what I haven’t got is a spare million pounds, okay?”

UCL posted £12 million in surplus last year on a budget of £713 million.

It’s a great read. UCL chief: Paying living wage would cost £1m a year … and I don’t have it [Evening Standard]

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