Help ensure MPs understand the reality of the cost of living crisis

UNISON is urging activists and members to lobby their MPs and call for a general election in Westminster next Wednesday, 2 November.

The lobby takes place during the worst cost-of-living crisis in 50 years. Everything is going up but wages. The Tories crashed the economy with their mini-budget and all the signs are showing that they will try and fill the hole in public finances created by their own mistakes with a fresh wave of austerity.

This will place public services under unbearable strain, as they are still struggling to recover after the pandemic and 12 years of cuts and low investment.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies has calculated that the cuts implied by the government’s economic mismanagement could lead to 200,000 jobs being lost. Added to this, further austerity will have implications for pay settlements in years to come and condemn millions of people who are dependent on benefits to poverty in the months ahead.

The lobby is an opportunity to tell MPs about the reality of the cost of living crisis and to make it clear that cuts are not the answer.

Instead, we need higher pay, investment in public services and for benefits to increase in line with inflation.

This government simply has no mandate for more cuts.

Where relevant, the lobby is also an important opportunity to speak with MPs about current pay disputes and ballots in the NHS, higher education, the Environment Agency, the Food Standards Agency and the Care Quality Commission.

The TUC is co-ordinating the lobby and helping to arrange the meetings with MPs. However, once you have signed up, UNISON will be in touch with you to provide a briefing note.

If your workplace is in a different constituency to where you live and you want to meet the MP for where you work, please enter the postcode for your workplace on the sign-up page.

The day will end with a rally at the Westminster Methodist Central Hall at 6-8pm. The rally will feature contributions from trade union members, general secretaries and celebrities and focus on the need for an election.

It’s time to let voters choose a new Westminster government.

The article Help ensure MPs understand the reality of the cost of living crisis first appeared on the UNISON National site.

‘Co-ordinated action unites us,’ McAnea tells TUC congress

“Our purpose binds us – co-ordinated action unites us.” That was the message at the heart of Christina McAnea’s speech to the TUC’s annual congress in Brighton today, as she moved a successful UNISON motion on Higher pay to tackle the cost of living crisis.

The general secretary had opened by telling delegates that she had been on a picket line recently in Blackpool. It was “early one morning, in the wind and the rain …

“I was talking to our UNISON members. Most of them were cleaners, caterers or porters, who work in the hospital but for a private company – OCS.

“They don’t get full NHS pay and conditions, and even during the pandemic – working Christmas day – they only got flat rate pay.

“Their ask was reasonable: pay parity with the directly-employed workers doing the same job.

Ms McAnea said that she had asked one of members how she travelled to the picket line so early.

The member replied that she walked. An hour to work/the picket line and an hour home.

“Because she could no longer afford the bus fare.”

That, said the general secretary, was the reality that was forcing people take strike action even when it meant losing pay.

She continued by telling the hall: “The picture inside our NHS hospitals is not much prettier. Almost 30% of employers have set up foodbanks to help feed their staff and another 20% are planning to bring it in.”

It was, said Ms McAnea, “a shameful period in our history.”

She reported that a care worker, forced to work 60-70 hours a week to pay her debts, had asked: “Is this life, what do you think?”

The general secretary told congress that, while working people have struggled through austerity, a deadly pandemic and are now in a devastating cost of living crisis, they face a repeat of the “penny-pinching austerity” inflicted on the country since 2010.

“Meanwhile, the UK government has been playing roulette, racking up debt on the public tab.

“All their gambling always ending with the same result – working people lose out.”

And she had surprising words of thanks for Conservative MP Sir Crispin Blunt, for his wise words over the weekend, agreeing that, “Yes, ‘the game is up’.”

But Ms McAnea said that “this should never have been a game, because it’s far too serious for that.”

With the government trying desperately to blame someone or something other than itself, it was time for it to take responsibility for a decade of spending cuts, for the political choices that have made the economy weaker and working people poorer.

The latest, desperate chaos at the heart of government she said was not “desperation to save the country, but desperation to save the Tory Party.”

But the party is sinking in the polls as mortgage repayments, energy bills, and food and travel costs are up.

“The country can’t take any more,” said Ms McAnea. “Workers can’t take any more. Only a general election … can get rid of this lot of chancers”.

She then turned her attention to the people who are putting the interests of working people first: trade unionists.

And emphasising that UNISON already works with other unions, she made the message clear: “Our purpose binds us – co-ordinated action unites us”.

The article ‘Co-ordinated action unites us,’ McAnea tells TUC congress first appeared on the UNISON National site.

Blog: Taking our cost of living campaign to a wider audience

Last week, we launched the latest phase of our cost of living crisis campaign, Together We Rise. Turning outwards to the wider public, we’re bringing the message home to as many people as possible, that poverty is a choice made by the powerful.

You might have seen one of our poster billboards, shared some of our campaign graphics or our video on social media – or even encouraged one of your friends or colleagues to sign our petition calling on the prime minister to end the pay crisis. A pay crisis caused by the current government in Westminster.

After a summer of political inertia – and a chaotic recent few weeks since Liz Truss became the new PM – it’s clear that working people will ultimately pay for the mistakes of Truss and her chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng.

News reports today give us a worrying picture. Banks are setting aside more money for defaults as people can’t pay their mortgage after interest rate hikes, there’s a £62bn black hole in the UK’s finances and average pay has fallen by 4% in real terms. We know that percentage is greater for public service workers.

UNISON members are facing the reality of falling pay and that’s why industrial action ballots and strike action are intensifying.

So as Parliament returns today, now is the time to grab their attention. There is more we can do to get politicians to be on the side of working people. We’re asking all our members to lobby their MPs, either at their constituency surgery this Friday 14 October, or at our mass lobby of Parliament in London on 2 November.

It doesn’t matter what party your MP is from, we want all political parties to hear from public service workers about how the pay crisis is affecting them.

And if you’re one of the half a million UNISON members being balloted for strike action in the Environment Agency, NHS or probation, make sure you vote. Together we can make a difference and help create a better life for so many people.

These are the important steps you can take to play your part in our movement. And as UNISON’s general secretary, I’m speaking up for public services and our fantastic UNISON members at every opportunity – to the government, to the Labour Party, on the media and on the picket line.

The article Blog: Taking our cost of living campaign to a wider audience first appeared on the UNISON National site.

Let’s rise up in Westminster on 2 November – in UNISON

UNISON is urging activists and members to lobby their MPs next month as part of the Together We Rise campaign.

Working with the TUC and other unions, UNISON is organising a lobby of the Westminster parliament on Wednesday 2 November, between 2-6pm.

This will be an opportunity for members to meet their MPs and tell them about the reality of the cost of living crisis.

Where relevant, it will also be an important opportunity to speak with MPs about current pay disputes and ballots in higher education, health, the Environment Agency and the Food Standards Agency.

Sign up here

The TUC will co-ordinate the lobby and arrange the meetings with MPs. However, once you have signed up, UNISON will be in touch with you to provide briefing and priority campaign messages.

Since the lobby was first called, many members will have been further affected by the government’s budget, which pushed up interest rates, mortgage costs and seriously threatened the stability of the pensions system.

To fund the tax cuts announced in the budget the government is threatening a further wave of austerity.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies has calculated that this could lead to 200,000 jobs being cut. Activists and members can use this opportunity to make it clear to their MPs that this is simply unacceptable.

If your workplace is in a different constituency to where you live, and you want to meet the MP for where you work, please enter the postcode for your workplace on the sign-up page.

The day will end with a rally at the Westminster Methodist Central Hall at 6-8pm. The rally will feature contributions from trade union members and general secretaries.

The article Let’s rise up in Westminster on 2 November – in UNISON first appeared on the UNISON National site.