Nick Hart
Wearing hats and coats indoors to save on fuel. Cutting out all but essential journeys to save on petrol. Putting items back on the supermarket shelf mid-shop.
Ways to try and offset the skyrocketing costs of bills, fuel and groceries are becoming all too familiar to many of us. And despite this penny-pinching, we still find ourselves wondering how on earth we’re going to make ends meet.
Since the credit crunch 14 years ago, workers have had their pay held down to the extent that the average wage at the end of 2021 bought less than it did in 2008. And that’s before the latest round of price rises!
And now, as inflation takes off again, many of those who were just about managing to get by are being tipped into hardship. The End Fuel Poverty Coalition has warned that the latest round of price rises could leave 8.5 million households unable to afford heat or power.
Filling up the car or paying for the travel pass to get to work, just to earn enough money to continue the work-home cycle, is leaving many workers wondering, what’s the point?
Inflation
With inflation set to hit 8% or more, it’s clear that all the money-saving tricks in the world won’t be enough to stop large numbers of working-class people feeling crushed. The only way out is through taking action together.
Where employers try to impose pay deals that will see workers lose out in real terms, trade unions in those workplaces should prepare for industrial action. Recent victories by bin workers in Solihull, Wiltshire, and elsewhere, winning improved pay offers in the face of bosses pleading poverty, show that the first line of defence against attacks on our living standards is a strong trade union.
But workers can’t be left to fight one workplace at a time. To truly tackle the soaring cost of living, we need to change the way society and the economy are run along socialist lines.
With many of the same fuel and energy companies that are squeezing us dry, spending hundreds of thousands of pounds lobbying the Tories, Labour and Lib Dems alike, it’s clear they all form part of the same big business and political establishment. We need a party that stands up for us!
As a step towards this, Socialist Party members and others are standing in this May’s local elections as part of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition to give a voice to working-class people at the ballot box. Join us to be part of the fightback against the cost-of-living crisis, and for a socialist system that meets the needs of ordinary working-class people!
