Many thanks to local councillor Connor Brady for submitting this piece! Cllr Brady has shared his thoughts on industrial action and why it's so important to bargain for better working conditions in the cost of living crisis. Read what he had to say below...

The ability for workers to collectively bargain is a democratic right and as the cost of living crisis intensifies, striking for better pay will be one of the only defences against poverty and destitution.

Inflation could go as high as 15% into the new year and yet we see across the country workers being offered a 3% or 4% wage "rise". In reality that is a big pay cut which seems deranged when you consider that just energy costs for the average household have tripled, from £1,300 in October 2021 to £3,850 a year later. That over £2,000 increase is astonishing when you consider that the energy companies' profits are doubling and tripling at the same time, whilst in France their energy bills are capped at October 2021 prices and have seen no increase. In Britain, a third of people have less than £600 in savings and 41% of people do not have enough savings to live for a month without income. This is so stark because that is before you even look at the inflationary increases to every other cost. It means hundreds of thousands of people are going to be forced into poverty whilst the government is uninterested in this crisis.

This is why industrial action is so important for working-class people to be able to do something themselves about the cost-of-living crisis. The most prominent strikes ongoing at the moment are with the RMT. They are striking with astonishingly radical demands, that there are no compulsory redundancies and a pay rise that keeps up with inflation. In the media we have seen the most extraordinary remarks that asking for that bare minimum is greedy or would cause an inflation spiral. Inflation is going up to 15% and we are all getting real terms pay cuts, the idea that wages cannot go up is simply propaganda propagated for the richest people in society who are making money hand over fist whilst we are dictated to about our wages being too high. The media want to talk about greed? Andrew Haines, CEO of Network Rail is paid £585,000, Matthew Gregory, CEO of First Group is paid £635,000, Patrick Verwer, Managing Director of UK Rail is paid £482,000, and David Brown, previous CEO of Go Ahead was paid £1,270,000. How dare they lecture regular people on £25,000 per year on wages going up with inflation. When we talk about greed, the FTSE 350 companies' profits are up 73% from the pre-pandemic levels, BP's profits hit £7bn between April and June, up more than 200% from last year, and British Gas owner Centrica's half year profits are up by 400% on the year previous. Companies are rinsing us, reaping in more money than ever before, all whilst telling us we cannot have pay increases that keep up with inflation, it doesn't make sense.

We have a profit inflation crisis in this country. The profits of big businesses need to be taken down a peg or two because the people at the top of the economy are having a disco and everyone else is being told that they have to carry the can and tighten their belts. It's not good enough and we shouldn't accept it. The only way to change that is to strike and get your pay packet up. BT and Openreach workers are on strike as they have been offered just a 5% pay increase, whilst the company posted a profit of £1.3bn last year, the CEO received a 32% pay increase, and a BT call centre has a foodbank set up for employees. It is unfathomable that if you work for BT you could live in poverty, how can that be acceptable? British Airways is an example of what you achieve when you push for industrial action. With Unite, they called off a summer strike after the top of BA, instead of saying that the workers would not see their Covid pay cut reinstated, they reinstated the 10% cut and offered an additional one-off bonus and 8% wage increase.

Workers have one form of power and that is collective bargaining. Every right that we have as workers in this country has been secured by playing hardball. Whilst the Government does nothing on the cost of living crisis, the Tory leadership hopefuls show contempt for regular people, and opposition parties offer little, we have to use the power we have to ensure that we receive a pay rise which keeps up with inflation to have any chance of battling the cost of living crisis.