Enough is enough!

With a new wave of strikes approaching, it’s time for us all to show our support for the local people who provide the essential services on which we depend, says Gabriel Carlyle.

Local postal workers, rail workers and BT engineers all look set to take further strike action in the coming days and weeks, as part of a series of nation-wide strikes. Nurses and firefighters may not be far behind them, and criminal barristers have already begun an indefinite, uninterrupted strike on 5 September.

Meanwhile, Hastings & District Trades Union Council are organising a ‘Cost-of-living Emergency Rally’ outside Hastings Station at 11am on Saturday 1 October (see below for details) as part of the Enough is Enough! campaign’s national day of action.

What’s it all about?

Enough is Enough! was recently founded by trade unions and community organisations determined ‘to push back against the misery forced on millions by rising bills, low wages, food poverty, shoddy housing – and a society run only for a wealthy elite.’

These concerns are vividly illustrated by the issues that workers are striking over.

For example the RMT union, which represents many railway workers, notes that ‘[t]he current attempts to drive down staff pay, cut jobs, services and maintenance work, close ticket offices and empty trains and stations of staff, which lie at the heart of the rail dispute, are being driven by the fact that the industry, supported by the government, owe their primary allegiance to the interests of big business shareholders.’ (St Leonards Warrior Square ticket office is one of those slated for closure: see here).

The RMT also notes that on average the rail companies are making £500m in profits each year – money that could be invested to protect jobs and services. Indeed, half of the profits made by the train operating companies is ‘paid through private companies owned by foreign state rail companies, meaning that it will subsidise transport systems in France, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and China.’

Likewise, the CWU (the union for the posties and BT workers) point to the facts that:

• their Royal Mail members ‘have had an unagreed 2 per cent pay deal imposed on them’ at the same time that inflation is running at 11.8 per cent and ‘Royal Mail has announced Group profits of £758 million’;
• that BT has unilaterally imposed a real-terms pay cut on the CWU’s members, even as it made £1.3 billion in net profit in the year ended 31 March 2022;

and

• that BT’s CEO Philip Jansen (who got a 32% pay rise to £3.2 million) has been nicknamed ‘Foodbank Phil’ in many workplaces after EE – a subsidiary of the BT Group – established a food bank for its poorly paid employees.

(According to a recent report from Unite, analysis of data from company accounts and the Office for National Statistics suggests that the current “cost of living crisis” is ‘to a large degree a profiteering crisis: both our wages, and what they can buy, are being squeezed by companies pursuing runaway profits… 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.’)

And the Criminal Bar Association (CBA) notes that:

‘Criminal barristers in England and Wales have suffered an average decrease of 28% in real earnings since 2006 and due to a combination of poor earnings and falling real incomes, a quarter of specialist criminal barristers have been lost over the last five years. In 2021 alone, 300 were forced to leave criminal practice, including 40% of the most junior criminal barristers. The median annual income for criminal barristers in their first three years is just £12,200.’

According to the Guardian, victims’ commissioner Dame Vera Baird says the barristers’ strike is the ‘latest symptom of a criminal justice system that is severely and recklessly underfunded. And it is victims who are ultimately paying the price and will continue to suffer the longer this goes on.’

Also in: Campaigns

« Activists urge support for countries hit by climate change
Stop Rwanda deportations »