Link to this page: http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/issue/186/8023
From The Socialist newspaper, 15 December 2000
End Low Pay
NHS Exploitation
Student Nurses earning £2.60 an hour are victims of low pay. With 80,000 nurses set to retire in the next five years, the Royal College of Nursing accuses the government of deceiving the public with misleading announcements about increases in staff.
The Socialist says health service staff need decent pay, in a fully funded health service - otherwise the healthcare workforce will continue to decline, beds will remain empty and wards closed.
Slave Labour Rip-off
Some workers are even done out of the minimum wage. Indian stonemasons working on a Hindu temple in north London were paid 60p an hour while living in a shack on the site. They won £100,000 in back pay after builders' union UCATT took up their case.
The bosses are making record profits, the stock markets make millionaires overnight, yet some workers have to fight even to get their right to a measly £3.70 an hour. It is the increasing gap between poor and rich that is driving working class people towards a socialist alternative.
Minimum Wage Con
ARE YOU low paid? On the minimum wage? Then New Labour's got a Christmas present for you - a whole 30p an hour increase - an 8% rise!
Poverty is at an historic high. In the past three years the number on very low incomes has risen by one and a half million. Income support and other benefits are at the lowest level relative to general wages for 17 years, according to a report recently published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
The £3 70 minimum wage is laughable. It should be at least £5, as the trade unions demand, but realistically needs to be £7 an hour, to lift people out of the poverty trap.
The Socialist says
£5 an hour minimum wage as a step towards £7 an hour / £280 a week
Pay health workers a decent living wage!
Rebuild the National Health Service, free at the point of use.
Join us and build a socialist society.
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In The Socialist 15 December 2000:
Shut Down Hackney on 20 December
Marching Against Europe's well healed leaders in Nice
Vauxhall threatened by profits crisis
Right routed in civil service election
Elected to fight for members' interests
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