Oscar Parry, south west London Socialist Party
As another year of capitalist crisis begins, workers are fighting back against the ongoing cost-of-living crisis. Decades of public service austerity means the NHS is in constant meltdown while Jeremy Hunt’s £20 billion of tax cuts favoured the richest 20% of earners. A combination of inflation and frozen income tax thresholds is dragging millions of workers into paying more tax – taking taxes as a share of the economy to the highest level since World War Two.
And this is the first parliament in which British households are on course to be worse off at the end; whole average earnings adjusted for inflation are not forecast to return to their 2008 peak until 2028!
But these attacks haven’t just been accepted by the working class without a fight. Over the course of the last eighteen months, we have seen the largest number of workers on strike in Britain for three decades, from all sectors of the economy.
This strike wave is set to continue in 2024, with the first week of the year seeing members of the RMT on London Underground taking strike action against a derisory 5% pay offer from Transport for London, overseen by Labour mayor Sadiq Khan; and junior doctors beginning the longest strike in NHS history in pursuit of a 35% pay rise, which would restore their real earnings to 2008 levels.
Tory anti-union attacks
The hated Tories are fearful of the power that the resurgent workers’ movement wields and are attempting to enforce anti-trade union laws that require minimum service levels for many industries, restricting the right to strike for millions of workers.
The mass mood of resistance from below has pressured the Trades Union Congress (TUC) to pass motions agreeing trade unions will refuse to tell their members to cross picket lines, a clear act of defiance. We call for the TUC to put this motion into action and develop a strong plan of action to oppose these new laws, including demonstrations and solidarity strikes.
