The book examines the nature of the Real Living Wage as a body of civil regulation, the organizations behind the campaign and the methods they have used, the response of employers, including the motives and characteristics of businesses that have adopted the Living Wage. It also examines the responses of trade unions, which have included both cooperation and conflict, the role of public authorities, which have used a variety of non-statutory policy levers to encourage employers to adopt the Living Wage, and the outcomes of the campaign in terms of redistributive benefits for employees, economic benefits for adopting businesses, and wider social and institutional impacts. The book concludes by considering what the campaign tells us about the evolution of the employment system in the UK, noting that civil regulation and the institutions which create it have become important new system-elements.

About the Author:
David Nash, Deborah Hann, Edmund Heery

Edmund Heery is Professor Emeritus at Cardiff Business School, where he worked for 25 years before retiring in 2020. Over a long career Edmund has researched a variety of issues within UK industrial relations and published widely. He is the author of three monographs, a subject dictionary, and numerous academic articles and book chapters. In recent years his research has focused on the role of civil society organizations in shaping the world of work and it is this interest that has led to his latest project, a detailed case study of the UK's Living Wage campaign.

Deborah Hann completed her PhD in European Employment Relations at Manchester University in 2009. Deborah joined Cardiff Business School in 2011, after working at Queen's University Belfast and Oxford Brookes University. Her current areas of research interest cover conflict resolution in the workplace, having undertaken projects in conjunction with Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service and Labour Relations Agency, and civil society organisations and civil regulation in conjunction with the Living Wage Foundation. She has published in journals including Work, Employment and Society, Human Resource Management Journal, and Economic and Industrial Democracy. She is currently also co-Chair of Citizen Cymru Wales.

David Nash is a Reader in Employment Relations at Cardiff Business School, where he has worked since 2003. Prior to this David completed his doctoral research at Cambridge University. His research concentrates on the areas of employment regulation and workplace conflict resolution. He is currently undertaking research into the voluntary Living Wage campaign in the UK . He has undertaken research projects for the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service and Labour Relations Agency. David's published work includes articles in the British Journal of Industrial Relations, Industrial and Labor Relations Review and Industrial Relations Journal.