RMT members have voted to take part in strike action tomorrow (Tuesday 21st June), Thursday and Saturday to defend their jobs, their living standards, and the whole rail service. These workers deserve 100% support from other workers and anyone else in society who believes in fairness and economic justice.
There is no place for neutrality amid strikes and industrial disputes. The working class should always be on the side of the workers. It is a simple fact of life. A guiding principle. You are either with the workers or you are with the bosses. I implore you to stand with the workers and express your support and solidarity in whatever fashion is available to you. Join picket lines if you can. Sign petitions of support. Toot your horn if you are driving past a picket line. Under no circumstances do you ever cross a picket line.
The Tory Spivs and Posh boys have been in government since 2010. They have governed at every turn for the rich and powerful. Profits, dividends, and executive pay have rocketed with the assistance of top rate tax cuts, business subsidies and Covid19 bailouts. Meanwhile the Office of Budget Responsibility has confirmed the current cost of living crisis is causing the biggest reduction in household incomes since records began away back in 1956 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-60846951.
Tory imposed wage freezes and associated austerity measures have devastated millions of families across the UK and resulted in record levels of child poverty, in-work poverty and reliance on food banks to make ends meet. If trade unions are not prepared to fight now to defend wages, jobs and working conditions when will they?
Workers backs are against the wall. The increases in energy, food, fuel, transport, and clothing costs reflected in a rate of inflation reaching 11% by this autumn according to the Bank of England means a fightback is both necessary and justified. Workers must not be forced to suffer the consequences of Tory misrule and misplaced priorities. The boss class and their MP friends are not struggling to make ends meet. They grow richer by the day while workers struggle to maintain what little they have.
Make no mistake the rail strike is entirely justified, and the widespread disruption is the fault of the bosses and Tory government not the workers. The Train Operating Companies (TOCs) were already receiving £6.4 billion in public subsidies to run the rail service before Covid19 and received several billions more during the pandemic. The workers who kept services going and risked their lives during the pandemic were called ‘key workers’ but now face pay cuts, job losses and detrimental changes to working practices. However, the companies who repair the tracks made £235 million in profits, the companies who operate the trains made £300 million in profits and the companies who own the trains made £949 million in profits. And because of the privatised nature of the fragmented rail service permits foreign ownership 80% of the profits generated flow overseas.
As Mick Lynch the RMT General Secretary made clear during a recent Sky News interview the private train operators are regularly siphoning £500 million a year out of the service. If the public owned and ran the service that would be an extra £500 million a year available for investment in wages, service improvements and infrastructure https://twitter.com/SaulStaniforth/status/1538437638616662016?s=20&t=jKpq2tE5ahSVryHRw4TbYA.
Speaking at the mass TUC rally in London on Saturday in support of workers fighting against wage cuts across the UK Mick Lynch also issued a challenge to Labour MPs to back his union members and other trade unionists forced into struggle. ‘Which side are you on’? was his question to well heeled and publicly subsidised MPs who are supposed to represent workers not the bosses. We know Tory MPs support the bosses. That is part of their DNA. They don’t care about ordinary working people and especially workers who join trades unions. They hate workers who get themselves organised. Labour on the other hand was formed by the trade union movement and should be standing up loud and clear in support of the striking RMT members. Will Labour MPs answer Mick Lynch’s call and support the strikers? https://twitter.com/RMTunion/status/1538223197212090369?s=20&t=jKpq2tE5ahSVryHRw4TbYA. Time will tell but I wouldn’t count on it.
Former Scottish branch office leader Richard Leonard issued his public declaration of support for the RMT strikers the other day https://twitter.com/LabourRichard/status/1537760380155580417?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet but I’ve yet to see the current millionaire leader Anas Sarwar take a similar stand and Sir Keir Starmer’s inability to show the backbone required to do the right thing and back the RMT is symptomatic of the deep malaise Labour finds itself in. Faced with the most dishonest, incompetent, and untrustworthy Prime Minister in UK history it is incredible that more people believe Boris Johnson is a better PM than Starmer in opinion polls. The guy is as useful as a chocolate teapot and as spineless as a snake. Surely his days are numbered. Corbyn was far too soft on his internal traitors and not strong enough on Scotland’s right to choose independence, but he was 100 times the leader Starmer will ever be.
Of course, Mick Lynch of the RMT and other good and decent trade union leaders and members know full well that relying on cosseted MPs for support is a dead-end strategy. MPs willing to fight for workers’ rights and against the obscene poverty and inequality which scars every part of the UK are the exception to the rule.
We must always remember the MPs who have allowed our energy bills to climb 54% get their energy paid for by us.
The MPs who have allowed our rail fares to climb 49% get their rail tickets paid for by us.
The MPs unwilling to support a £15 p/h minimum wage to radically attack the scourge of low pay get their whopping £82,000 per annum salary and very generous expenses packages paid for by us.
The truth is most MPs are part of the problem not part of the solution. They benefit hugely from the rigged free market system they cling to and defend daily. We need workers MPs on workers’ wages fighting for public ownership and decent pay for all workers if we are ever going to deliver change via Westminster. No wonder most socialists and progressive thinking people in Scotland back independence as the means to an end of a much fairer and more socially just society.
We know the mainstream media is a propaganda tool of the rich and powerful which does whatever is required to promote the interests of big business and the British Establishment at every turn. They will move into top gear over the coming days trying to turn ordinary people against the strikes. One of the most popular themes is the one parroted by Tory MPs at every opportunity and championed by the Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey who preaches the need for ‘wage restraint’ to prevent inflation while taking home a wage packet of £575,538 last year https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/bank-of-england-outrageous-call-for-pay-restraint-branded-a-sick-joke. No struggling to make ends meet in the Bailey household.
The truth about inflation is hidden from the public by the compliant and obedient mass media. Inflation approaching 11% has nothing to do with the wages of ordinary workers and everything to do with excessive executive pay and greedy profiteering by the big companies who run the UK.
An excellent report commissioned by the trade union UNITE blew the tired old lie about workers’ wages fuelling inflation out of the water but received no media coverage as it fundamentally undermined the lies of the bosses and MPs in their attack narrative against striking workers.
This thoroughly researched report should be widely disseminated and featured on every major news report and discussion show. It should be discussed and dissected in every workplace and community across the UK. It illustrates conclusively the cost-of-living crisis is really a cost of Conservatives crisis as the spiralling rises in the goods and commodities required to live are due to the obscene profiteering and shameful wage packets of the bosses not the reasonable wage demands of workers merely seeking to secure inflation matching wage increases.
The key findings of the Report deserve presentation here:
“The UK is facing a “cost of living crisis” as working people’s incomes fail to keep up with soaring inflation. This is often presented in the media as something out of our control: prices are going up and there is nothing we can do about it.
But analysis of data from company accounts and the Office for National Statistics suggests that this is to a large degree a profiteering crisis: both our wages, and what they can buy, are being squeezed by companies pursuing runaway profits.
While the likes of the Governor of the Bank of England call on workers to show “wage restraint”, our analysis confirms what most people already know: wages are falling behind inflation.
Recent high inflation was initially sparked by supply chain shocks. But there are strong signs that “price gouging” – where businesses hike their prices above supply costs – is now pushing “second round” inflation.
So while the pandemic, energy demand and the invasion of Ukraine have undoubtedly caused ruptures in company’s supply chains, any “inflation spiral” is being pushed by profits.
This report investigates this crisis of inflation profiteering, with the following key findings: ¾
Profit margins for the UK’s biggest listed companies (FTSE 350) were 73% higher than pre-pandemic levels in 2019. ¾
UK-wide company profits jumped 11.74% in the six months from October 2021 to March 2022, according to the most recent ONS data. ¾
In the same period, labour income only rose 2.61%; and fell by 0.8% after accounting for inflation. ¾
This recent profit jump is responsible for 58.7% of inflation in the last half year – as opposed to just 8.3% due to labour costs. ¾
The UK appears to be following the pattern of inflation profiteering noted in the US, albeit some months behind the curve. ¾
This isn’t just about oil companies or a few “bad apples”. Even excluding energy firms, FTSE 350 company profits increased by 42% between 2019 and 2021”.
Bosses’ greed not worker’s needs have driven inflation to its highest level in over forty years and led to the most severe fall in household income for over sixty years. Workers striking tomorrow and over the coming weeks and months to secure cost of living wage rises and resist job cuts are reacting to a Tory and boss class inspired crisis. They deserve support and solidarity. It really is a time to decide whose side you are on. Unite leader Sharon Graham is spot on:
“The Governor of the Bank of England and Boris Johnson want workers to think it’s irresponsible to demand better wages to pay for crippling food and energy prices. But Unite’s report exposes the truth. It’s not hard-pressed workers who are driving inflation, it’s whole swathes of corporate Britain. In the last six months company profits were responsible for almost 60% of inflation.”
“It’s not just energy companies. There are businesses right across our economy and their directors who have made vast sums of money from Covid 19 and the inflationary pressures that have followed.
“Those who have profited from the crisis should pay for it. Unite makes absolutely no apologies for demanding better pay for our members. Wage restraint? It’s time to demand profit restraint.”
Think about it and let these statistics sink in. Average executives’ pay in the top 350 UK companies has risen an incredible 29% in the last period from £2.01 million a year to £2.59 million a year but workers should refrain from inflation matching wage demands and accept continued falls in their living standards… Aye right…
If you are not on the side of workers in these struggles you are in effect on the side of the multi-million-pound bosses. It is often said a Militant is merely a Moderate who gets up off their knees. Well, more and more workers need to become militant over these next few months or face disastrous cuts to their family budgets and living standards. Don’t cower in silence. Rise in rage. Support the workers always.
Tommy Sheridan: NUJ Member & former Glasgow MSP and City Councillor
A Time To Rage 
Leave a comment