Dear colleagues
On Saturday, thousands of trade unionists marched in Cheltenham to protest against the Tory Government’s anti-strike laws. The new legislation sets out ‘minimum service levels’ that an employer can require workers to maintain during a strike if those on strike are defined as essential workers. Even where all the legal processes have been complied with, including a ballot of members, an employer will stillbe entitled to order workers back to work.
The way to prevent strikes is for employers to negotiate with their own workforce, not to try and order a strike out of existence. We now face a crisis of greed, in which those who already have too much seek ever more for themselves, at the expense of the people who do the work. In meetings with senior management, I’ve been told that it’s essential for overpaid bosses to be paid even more, as otherwise there would be no-one to fill these roles. The same argument is used for commodity brokers, bankers and the like, who regularly help themselves to ridiculous wages and then look for loopholes to avoid paying tax. So are the people getting paid more than £100,000 per year really the most essential workers? It seems logical, since we’re told it would be impossible to get by without paying them more and more.
But as with the regulations that set out whose work was essential during the COVID pandemic, the new laws on strikes in essential services have revealed the underlying reality. Essential workers are some of the most underpaid people, doing the work that society cannot function without. The list of essential classes of employment includes refuse disposal workers, nurses and firefighters. It includes us.
For essential workers to be recruited in sufficient numbers, to stay in their posts as they accumulate vital knowledge and experience, to maintain morale and to avoid strikes, the answer is always the same: pay us a wage that reflects the essential nature of our work.
If politicians, commodities brokers and chief executives aren’t happy to receive normal wages and pay their taxes – well, their freedoms should be respected too. If they went on strike, we wouldn’t support legislation to force them back to work. But here’s the question – if society’s most overpaid people did go on strike – would anyone notice?
In solidarity
Jacob
Jacob Sanders
Unite Convenor, St Mungo’s
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