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Fatcat profits up wages down: Unites Sharon Graham in The Mirror

Need unions more than ever

 

 

Unfettered profiteering shows that our economy isn’t working for everyday people.

 

The economy is not working for workers either. Profits are up. Wages are down.

 

Struggle

 

We have a cost-of-living crisis with people struggling to heat their homes and feed their families.

 

But many firms are sitting pretty. Putting up their prices and delivering little more than profits. So, what of our politicians, as the scandal continues? Well, many either stand with the profiteers or remain rooted to the sidelines.

 

Pay cut

 

In truth, it matters not because for workers it all ends up pointing the same way – demanding that employees in Britain pay for the enduring crisis by taking a pay cut.

 

These days just who is it that speaks for ordinary women and men? The baton has been passed to the trade unions – we must step up to the plate and defend working people from a crisis most definitely not of their making.

 

And the truth is, when the unions focus on our core business – pay and conditions – we can deliver for workers as much as any Government policy.

 

We can win decent pay rises, make sure that you can go to work in a safe environment, and bargain so that you have a decent pension and dignity in retirement.

 

Workplace

 

When we focus and put our resources at the heart of the workplace, these are the things that trade unions can achieve. We don’t have to wait for political parties or parliamentary legislators.

 

And despite all the huff and puff, politicians have given away more control over our economy than they care to admit.

 

It is actually CEOs and their boards that make some of the biggest ­decisions, the ones that impact our daily lives.

 

Whether it’s imposing pay freezes despite making profits, putting up prices higher than their costs, or as we saw from P&O Ferries, firing workers at the drop of a hat without any fear of real consequences.

 

Corporate interest

 

It is often corporations, not ­politicians setting the agenda.

 

So, when the Government launched its attack on the right to strike, they were doing so on behalf of the same corporate interest that helped put them into No10 in the first place.

 

And as trade unions, we need to be prepared to face that – on our own if we must.

 

So, now is not the time for unions to be victims, or for us to hurry
back to Westminster with our begging bowls.

 

Seed of change

 

Instead we must have real plans to win and build effective resistance as necessary.

 

The Government knows that the seed of change lies within the trade union movement. That’s why they attack us.

 

This article by Unite General Secretary Sharon Graham first appeared in the Daily Mirror.

 

 

 

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