Spot the difference...
WE are in a perfect storm. The Governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey, has warned the UK should expect a more severe bout of inflation than other major economies, with soaring petrol and gas prices sending household bills rocketing to new highs.
At the same time, employees who have had their pay held down for a decade are trying to negotiate pay rises to help them cope with the cost-ofliving crisis.
Britain has already faced its biggest rail strike in 30 years with more action to follow.
But other staff are also taking industrial action or are balloting to do so: criminal barristers, teachers, junior doctors, airport staff, telecom workers, post office staff, and waste collectors. That list will grow.
In the meantime, the Government, rather than deal adequately with the real fears of families unable to make ends meet, vilifies workers for taking action and does nothing to help resolve disputes. The Government has accused the rail union of ‘holding the country to ransom’.
But rather than get people around the table to find a fair resolution, they are making the situation worse by legislating to bring in agency staff to replace striking workers. That is exactly what the Government slammed P&O ferries for doing when they replaced experienced workers with agency staff. Such action will endanger public safety, worsen disputes and poison industrial relations.
The inequality gap widened over the 10 years before the pandemic up to March 2020. The wealthiest 10 per cent of households held 43 per cent of all the wealth in Great Britain while the bottom half held just nine per cent. That gap is likely to have further increased during the pandemic as the already wealthy benefited from soaring stock markets.
So why is the Government focusing just on holding down the incomes of those who are already struggling?
They have tried to shirk any responsibility for the rail dispute despite holding the railway’s purse strings. In the same way, they will undoubtedly try to hide behind the Public Sector Pay Review Bodies to hold down pay in the NHS and schools.
Public services, in particular the NHS, are already suffering from chronic staff shortages. Some groups, particularly nurses, health visitors, midwives and scientific and technical staff have seen real terms falls in basic pay.
Since 2010, NHS pay has risen on average by 1.6 per cent a year. That is below inflation and below earnings growth across the wider economy.
Accident and emergency departments are a key measure of how the NHS and social care are performing because waiting times are affected by activity and pressures in other services, such as the ambulance service, primary care, community-based care and social care services.
A&E waiting times have worsened after a decade of government funding settlements that have failed to keep up with demand for services and growing staff shortages. The NHS has not met the four-hour standard at national level in any year since 2013/14 and the standard has been missed in every month since July 2015.
Last November, analysis by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine found that England had at least 4,519 excess deaths in 2020-21 as a result of overcrowding and stays of 12 hours or longer in emergency departments.
That is in the inevitable outcome of Government neglect of the NHS. Key workers, such as NHS and railway staff, teachers, binmen and telecom employees worked throughout the pandemic, putting lives on the line. How quickly their vital roles have been forgotten. They deserve not just recognition and our thanks for their dedication but adequate pay too.
No one can blame under-rewarded staff for walking away from their jobs if their pay does not reflect the crucial work they do. We need a government that values our country’s key workers and the trade unions defending their employment rights.