Home

The Socialist 8 October 2014

Striking to end low pay

We need ideas to change the world

NHS - The black hole

UK - A tax haven for the super-rich

Them & Us

South Africa: "A workers' party must emerge"

Middle East: Repel IS and Western imperialism

Coordinated attacks on Hong Kong movement

Ebola crisis: Consequence of profit before health

Stop corporate plunder of Bangladesh energy

We can beat the pay freeze!

Public sector: why we have to strike

RMT tube workers join October action

Teachers: Pay rise? What pay rise?

Support Care UK day of action

Sheffield: Green workers red with anger

M25 maintenance workers protest

Training tomorrow's trade union militants

Finance to fight for the future

School students organise disabled rights meeting

Ice cream, you scream, we all scream for £10 now!

Exhaustion from buzzer to buzzer

Bedroom Tax: Still making tenants' lives hell

Scotland: Workers need a new mass party

Correction: Labour's private health links are worse!

Thatcher's enemies within

Andrew Price: Fighter, teacher, party campaigner

PO Box 1398, Enfield EN1 9GT

020 8988 8777

[email protected]

Link to this page: https://www.socialistparty.org.uk/issue/828/19450

Search the site	Printable version

Home | The Socialist 8 October 2014 | Join the Socialist Party

Subscribe | Donate | PDF | ebook

Public sector: why we have to strike

Pickets in Hackney on the 10 July public sector strike, photo Paul Mattsson (Click to enlarge)

Brian Debus, Chair, Hackney Unison (personal capacity)

The October week of action is not before time: we have all suffered under a massive onslaught of job cuts and pay cuts since this Con-Dem government of the rich for the rich came to power.

This is not to let Labour off the hook: it also presided over cuts to living standards when it was in power. It has also promised to stick to Tory spending plans.

Local government employers have just blinked with a measly increase on their original 1% pay offer.

This indicates a fear that workers will start to realise their potential power through this current wave of strike action for decent pay.

It is estimated that ordinary people - the working class - are on average £40 a week worse off than they were five years ago.

Contrast this to chief executives' pay: 45 times the average wage in 1998 and now 185 times.

In 2014 the richest 1,000 individuals combined wealth rose by 15.4%. So much for all being in this together.

This is a weak and divided government. While they squabble lets stand together united for a £1 an hour pay rise.

Talk to your workmates, if they have not yet joined the union get them to do so and make our strike that much stronger.

Better still join the picket line at your workplace and publicise this strike to the world.

In this issue

Socialist Party news and analysis

We need ideas to change the world