Workers’ action to raise the minimum wage

£10 NOW

Fast Food Rights campaigners in Leeds on 28 August 2014, photo Erika Sykes

Fast Food Rights campaigners in Leeds on 28 August 2014, photo Erika Sykes   (Click to enlarge: opens in new window)

Ellen White, Lambeth Socialist Party

Every day we are bombarded by new facts and figures showing that the cost of living has gone up across the country. The homeless charity Shelter found that the average Londoner spends 59% of their income on rent alone. Even London mayor Boris Johnson has admitted that the cost of living in the capital has risen so much that a wage increase must be considered!

In recognition of how dire the situation is, at its recent national congress the Trades Union Congress adopted a policy that supports the demand for a £10 an hour minimum wage. The motion was proposed by the bakers’ union, which is working with Youth Fight for Jobs and others in the Fast Food Rights campaign to demand £10 an hour and an end to zero-hour contracts. The TUC vote is a great success for the campaign.

Achievable?

Given that the current minimum wage is a pitiful £6.31, some people may think that fighting for £10 is a big jump. But is £10 an hour really that much? It would mean a minimum wage worker ‘lucky’ enough to be on a full time (40 hour) contract would earn £19,200 a year before tax and living costs – not exactly luxurious riches. As it stands 10.5% of working adults with children say they or their partner have missed meals in the past 12 months to help pay for their home. All of this fills me with rage. We have to fight for what we need, not what the bosses and their friends in Westminster tell us they can afford!

The crucial question is not ‘do we need the money?’ but how can we fight to win it? The recent victory in Seattle for $15 an hour (a more than doubling of the minimum wage won by a mass campaign led by socialist city councillor Kshama Sawant) has shown that we can fight and win. We have to convince people that £10 is obtainable. But most importantly we have to keep up the pressure on the TUC and its constituent parts for mass workers’ action to fight for a wage we can really live on.