We all need a pay rise! Unions must lead the fight
Adam Harmsworth, Vice Chair Napo, probation and family courts workers’ union (personal capacity)
How cold is too cold before putting the heating on? What level of overdraft is manageable? Could I save a bit of money by holding out until this evening before having a bite to eat? The bills just keep rising: food, fuel, transport, and other essentials. But our pay doesn’t.
Those aren’t questions the profit-seeking bosses ever have to ask themselves! Last year, the average pay of FTSE 100 CEOs was over £4 million each. Unite the Union has reported company profit margins have soared 30% compared with pre-pandemic. And it’s the willingness of trade unionists to fight back that has led to some workers being shielded from the worst effects of runaway inflation, by winning improved pay deals.
But we shouldn’t have to fight over and over to ensure we have enough to live on. The trade union movement fought and won the establishment of the minimum wage. But now we have to fight to make it enough to live on.
The minimum wage from April next year will be just £12.21 an hour for over 21s, £10 for 18 to 20-year-olds, and a paltry £7.55 for under-18s. In 2021, the Trades Union Congress adopted the policy for a £15-an-hour minimum wage to be implemented, as quickly as possible. So if this Labour government is supposed to be delivering a ‘new deal for workers’, why isn’t it making it £15 an hour now?!
In October, the young members’ network in my trade union Napo moved a motion at the union’s AGM demanding an immediate £15-an-hour minimum wage, for all ages and rising with inflation. It passed almost unanimously. The unions have to fight to demand Labour makes the increase now.
The trade unions are crucial to fighting for and winning a decent living standard for workers. They have to counter the pressure of the capitalist bosses, who want Labour to keep wages low and help them maintain their gargantuan profits.
Trade unions must build serious pressure on the Labour government for action now, for £15 an hour, to scrap Tory anti-union laws, including the undemocratic 50% strike vote threshold, an end to council cuts, and other measures to reduce the enormous costs on workers.
We need our energy bills cut, our transport costs cut, rents capped, and our public services fully public and fully funded. And we need a party for fight for it. That’s why the Socialist Party calls for a new mass working-class party, fighting for socialist change.