Low Pay Campaign Taps Into Anger

ISR (International Socialist Resistance) members and supporters in
Swansea donned monkey masks on 28 August and dished out peanuts to members
of the public to expose the low-pay scandal. We wanted to make the point
that young workers are fed up with being paid wages so low they may as
well be peanuts.

Sarah Mayo, Swansea

We certainly entertained all the toddlers going by as five of us wore
our highly realistic monkey masks while we distributed pocket-sized ‘Your
rights at work’ cards to the public. We placed a placard in the centre of
the street which had the slogan ‘Are you paid peanuts – feel like a
monkey?’

We also had an information stall with petitions, leaflets, and ISR’s
‘Fight for your rights at work’ pack on it as well as some chocolate
coated peanuts for people to enjoy!

Young workers and their parents were happy to come up to our stall and
tell us how angry they feel about their wages and conditions at work. One
young kitchen worker was made to work long hours on the bank holiday for
£3.00 an hour with hardly any breaks.

We know that young people are angry about this issue so we will
continue with protests and information stalls and we plan to collect 500
signatures (as a beginning) to hand in to the Welsh Assembly and the Welsh
TUC to put pressure on the government to end the low pay scandal.

We’ve already had some good publicity from the local newspaper and
radio stations and we plan to link up with the local trade unions.