Low paid say: “Enough is enough”

Low paid say

"Enough is enough"

UP TO 100,000 low-paid civil servants in job centres and
benefit offices (DWP) and the Driving Standards Agency went on strike on 16 and
17 February for better pay.

"I’ve worked in the DWP for four years" said
Patrick from Leytonstone job centre. "The pay has always been poor and the
conditions are getting worse. This is the second time I’ve been on strike and I
wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think it was really worth fighting. On a weekly
basis we are verbally abused and physically threatened. Enough is enough."

Civil servants are so low-paid that 20,000 are claiming the
benefits they administer! Helen, an admin assistant at Bailey Court JobCentre
Plus in Sheffield has ten years’ service and is paid less than £12,000 a year. 

"One claimant with no qualifications just got a job on higher pay than any
of us staff on the picket line", she said.

On the first day of the strike a leaked report gave details
of up to 80,000 job losses across the civil service. Janice Godrich, president
of the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) told the socialist: 

"If
the report was leaked to frighten people into not supporting the strike it
didn’t work. The numbers on strike exceeded more than we’d ever seen before in
the DWP".

Low pay, job cuts, worsening conditions and declining
public services – that’s the reality for millions of workers under Blair and
New Labour. While big business fat cats are given massive tax breaks of
billions of pounds a year, they expect some of the lowest paid workers in the
public sector to live on poverty wages.

New Labour are prepared to spend up to £10 billion on war
and occupation in Iraq but refuse to give workers a decent wage. 

But civil
servants have shown that even the lowest paid workers have had enough and are
prepared to fight back.