This Saturday, May 12th, the TUC is organising a march and rally under the slogan ‘we all deserve a pay rise’. The march will assemble at Victoria Embankment between Hungerford Bridge and Blackfriars Bridge from 11am. It will move off at noon and march to Hyde Park. Where there will be a rally, addressed among others, by Jeremy Corbyn, Labour leader.
For seven years, the government have frozen public servants’ pay or given them a settlement below inflation. As prices, rents and bills go up, that means real hardship for many.
The public-sector union Unison, for example, found that shocking numbers of healthcare staff were having to use food banks, payday lenders and pawnshops. They found that more than two thirds (67%) said they had either sought financial help or made major changes to their standards of living in the past 12 months. A midwife has seen their pay cut in real terms by £3,000
Similarly, according to the Fire Brigades Union, a firefighter today is earning £2,000 less in real terms than they were in 2010. And all this when rents are rising and the money in a worker’s pocket stretches less and less far.
Pay rises should not be “unaffordable”!
Ruth Foley, PCS member, writes:
The continued enforced austerity of the Tory government with the Treasury pay remit, setting parameters of a 1% cap across the public sector must end!
While the Tories have driven down wages for workers across the public sector and civil service, corporate profits have risen to 21% of GDP. The inequality and tax gap keep increasing with those at the lowest end of the pay scales suffering most.
We need a new deal for working people!
Workers are on average £4000 a year worse off since the start of the enforced pay cap of 1% in 2008. Workers have to resort to foodbanks. Across the country, local economies are suffering because of low wages and people cutting back on spending on non-essential items. The pay cap has deprived the economy of £1.7 billion. When deciding on food, shoes or heating, money is not spent on luxuries in local shops.
These are uncertain times for many workers with a big increase in numbers being stuck on zero-hour contracts. These undermine the rights of workers and take away the stability needed to pay rents and bills.
Continued attacks on welfare benefits just add to the pressure of low-paid, part-time work and unemployment. There is no help for those under 25 to rent, keeping young people at home with their parents, or in poor accommodation with landlords doing nothing to keep properties in a decent state to be lived in.
Universal Credit doesn’t pay anything for a third child and sickness benefits have been cut for many by £30 a week. Now Theresa May is taking free school meals from thousands of the poorest children. At the same time as these Tory attacks MPs voted an 11% pay rise for themselves.
The TUC has convened this mass march and rally for its members and for working people in general, but it must be the starting point for an ongoing mass campaign in the workplaces and in working class communities for real change. If the Tories won’t fix the problem of falling living standards, then we demand a government which can!
The TUC must mobilise support for a campaign of actions, rallies and demonstrations to force the Tories out and to return a Labour government committed to policies in the interests of working people.
The TUC needs and ongoing campaign for:
· A £10 minimum wage for all, not dependant on age. The cost of living and working is the same at 18 as it is at 50, and with changes to pension and retirement laws 67 or 68 and beyond!
· A minimum of a 5% pay rise across the whole of the public sector, with no strings
· Equal pay for equal work
· Fully-funded public services accessible to all
· For a new general election and the return of a Labour government with policies for the Many, not the Few.
MMay 9, 2018
