- Fight for a minimum wage of £5 an hour as a first step to £7 an hour – the European decency threshold.
- End the power and privilege of the wealthy, for a socialist society and economy run to meet the needs of all.
WHAT HAS sickened you most in recent weeks? We believe one that deserves special prominence is the £10.6 million bonus that Granada chief Gerry Robinson got for his company’s merger with Compass Hospitality.
Last week New Labour, faced with a growing outcry, pledged to scrap the youth rate for the minimum wage and to ensure that the minimum wage is uprated annually.
But a young person receiving even the full minimum wage would take 1,377 years to earn what Robinson earned in a day. Even with recent advances in DNA science it’s not going to happen is it?
Even someone on average earnings would have to work 485 years to get Robinson’s reward.
But is somebody like Robinson the exception rather than the rule? Chris Gent, head of Vodafone Air Touch is lining himself up a similar £10 million bonus – on top of his £6.5 million salary and bonuses package – for merging the company with Mannesman.
The National Association of Pension Funds has advised its members to vote it down. But even if they succeed in this case it won’t stop the fat cats trying to fill their bowl again and again.
Blair’s government is creating a society of unparalleled wealth and greed amidst terrible poverty. 26% of people in Britain live below the poverty line.
In London the rate of reported cases of TB – a disease directly linked to poverty – has doubled since 1987. Last year there were 2,500 cases, with new cases and two deaths reported every week in the capital.
Another report showed how people in ‘rip-off’ Britain are between 15%-37% poorer, with 23% less cash to spend than those in the rest of Europe, because we are lower paid and have a higher cost of living.
These ‘raw’ figures about Blair’s Britain show why Labour’s ‘popularity’ is sliding. It’s not about spin or Euan Blair having a ‘few too many’, it’s because Labour is delivering a ‘few too little’ to change the lives of working-class people.
If you want a decent wage and fundamental change then become a socialist and join the Socialist Party.
