Utility bill and council tax hikes... benefit cuts...

End austerity. Fight for a living wage!

Glasgow PCS pay day protest, photo Socialist Party Scotland (Click to enlarge)

Dave Carr

Despite a £30 billion windfall in the government's coffers, Tory chancellor Philip Hammond's spring statement signals a continued squeeze on low-income families.

Because of a freeze on benefits the poorest households will lose on average £400 this year. Also, the government's austerity measures will mean cuts to Universal Credit and increases in council tax. Shockingly, it's reported that cuts and delays to Universal Credit payments are forcing some women into sex work.

But the cost of living crisis doesn't stop there. Gas and electricity bills are set to rise from 1 April, as are water charges, the TV licence fee, and NHS prescriptions in England.

In the next fortnight, working-class people will also be adversely impacted by higher car tax, increases in mobile phone network charges, the higher cost of postage stamps, and a hike in 'class three' national insurance contributions which count towards a state pension.

Wages

But an average worker's annual real wage remains hundreds of pounds below what it was over a decade ago when the capitalist financial crisis erupted. And since then successive governments, while bailing out the super-rich elite and the capitalist system to the tune of trillions of pounds, have imposed pay freezes, ie pay cuts, on millions of public sector workers.

But organised workers are fighting back. Low-paid civil servants, many of who actually qualify for the benefits they administer, are balloting for strike action over the next month to demand better pay. Their union, the PCS, is demanding a modest 10% rise.

Katrine Williams, PCS national executive and Socialist Party member, says: "There's huge discontent over low pay but yet again the Treasury wants to restrict our pay rise to 1%. An imposed increase in contributions to our pension scheme has wiped out the miserable 1% pay 'rises', so pay has literally gone down before you even take into account cost of living rises.

"However, with the government in complete disarray we recognise now is a good time to fight back on pay and win."

Working-class people have had enough of austerity. We've had enough of the tax-dodging super-rich. And we've had enough of this zombie government. Let's get organised and fight back.

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In The Socialist 20 March 2019:

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