RECOVERY: WHAT RECOVERY?

If you believe George Osborne, David Cameron and a chunk of the media, workers are back in the land of milk and honey. We're told our wages are exceeding inflation for the first time since before the 2008 recession. Reality is a bit less rosy for those working to remain poor.

Real wages plummeted by £50 a week in 2014. For the first time since the 1920s, real wages are lower at the end of a government's term of rule than when they seized office.

And a special report by Ernst Young ITEM Club last month punctured the Tories' celebratory balloons. Their chief economist, Martin Beck, wrote:

"Real wages have fallen by nearly 10% since 2008, but workers will finally see more money in their pockets this year. However, this is not a normal recovery. The move towards later retirement and huge increase in the workforce has depressed real wages as workers have priced themselves into jobs. We don't expect a return to boomtime wages any time soon."

ZERO HOURS BOOM

Try telling the 200,000 Scottish workers consigned to the pitiful pay and hellish uncertainty of life on Zero Hours Contracts that things are getting better!

In any case, any workers aspiring to be as well off as they were before 2008 severely lack ambition! This was already one of the most unequal states internationally, with some of the lowest pay, longest hours of work and shortest holidays in Europe.

The SSP campaign against dreadful Zero-hours contracts.

THE BRIBES DON'T WORK

But just in case we're not all convinced to rush off to vote Tory by their claims of rising wages, the Tories hope to bribe the gullible as the general election looms. Osborne's plans have leaked out: to raise the tax threshold "towards £11,000", with bogus boasts that this will rescue the lowest paid. In fact it wouldn't even touch many of the poorest people, because they're paying no taxes right now, due to earning below the existing £10,000 tax threshold.

That includes vast armies of part-time workers, women in particular. It includes hundreds of thousands in retail jobs, the biggest single employer in the country, and also the biggest single sector of poverty pay.

Nor will this minor tax threshold adjustment compensate public sector workers for the increased pension contributions they face next month - so they can work longer and get less in their pensions, if they aren't forced to work 'til they drop.

Very few will be fooled by the Tories' claims. Workers know full well that when VAT, Council Tax and other regressive taxes are added, the poorest 10% of the population pay 43% of their lowly incomes in taxes - whereas the richest 10% only pay 35% of the incomes they grudgingly declare! And of course they systematically dodge tax on an industrial scale, as the recent HSBC scandal confirmed.

SETTING THEIR PALS' PAY

Anger at the way wages make up a shrinking slice of the national cake of wealth is turned into justified rage when you look at the incomes of the giant employers - and of those who decide the salaries of their chief executives.

A recent survey of the incomes and directorships held by what's called the Remuneration Committees of the FTSE 100 top companies makes dangerous reading for anyone with high blood pressure! These bodies decide the pay of company executives. They consist of a narrow pool of directors of other companies, a cosseted elite who might as well be from another planet. The survey found that the average income of the members of these Remuneration Committees was £441,383 last year, 16 times the average worker's wage of £27,200. And the highest paid member of this self-serving clique of capitalists was awarded over £9.2million - an incredible 339 times as much as the average worker's wage for 2014.

OVERPAID LOW PAY COMMISSION

In stark contrast, workers eking out an existence on poverty pay have their very own 'Remuneration Committee' - the Low Pay Commission, which annually recommends what levels of national minimum wage the government should introduce. Their latest report shamelessly boasts of 'inflation-busting increases' for the minimum wage, claiming 'the highest increase since 2007' - because they've recommended a 3% rise on the over-21s rate...wait for it...to the princely sum of £6.70 an hour!

In case such 'inflated' pay might bust the allegedly booming economy, these worthies have proposed £5.30 for workers aged 18-20, £3.87 for 16-17-year-olds, and a slave rate of £2.80 for apprentices.

This Low Pay Commission has one distinct feature: none of its nine members has even the remotest idea what it's like to live on low pay! It's made up of employers, 'independents' and those allegedly from an 'employee background'. One of the two claiming the latter role is John Hannett, general secretary of Usdaw, the biggest union in the retail sector, with 45,000 members in Scotland alone.

STAND UP FOR WORKERS!

But those of us who are Usdaw members, working in retail on £6.50-£7.20 an hour in various firms, don't seem to be our general secretary John Hannett's first consideration; he and the UK leadership of Usdaw actually submitted a proposal to the Low Pay Commission for a £7 minimum wage from next October!

As reported in the Usdaw union magazine, our general secretary isn't on £6.50 an hour, nor even the £10 an hour he voted for at the TUC conference; he's on a salary of £94,514, plus NIC and pension contributions, plus a union car - in-work benefits totaling another £42,408! No wonder he's not storming heaven to mobilize workers in retail and other low-paid jobs to demand a decent living wage.

LOW PAID 'COMMISSION'

Far from feeling that all is glorious and comfortable for millions of workers, people are not seeing the benefits of the much trumpeted recovery in the economy, are struggling to cope with the household bills - and desperately need to become part of a massive campaign for a living minimum wage. We need our own, genuine, 'low pay commission', a force made up of the low paid and their allies, organized and determined to demand decent wages.

The SSP is determined to be at the heart of such a struggle, and are proud to have common cause with the Bakers union (BFAWU) and others battling for £10 now for all workers. We appeal to the leaderships of all trades unions to take up the cudgels in pursuit of the £10 minimum wage which every one of them voted for at the 2014 annual conference of the 7-million member TUC. And we appeal to workers to join us in the fight for union rights in every workplace - as part of the struggle to banish poverty pay, Zero Hours Contracts and the disgusting inequality created by capitalist profiteering.

A TALE OF TWO CLASSES: MPs' and workers' wages

                                             

A tale of two classes; or two planets, more like! 
All that is rotten and unequal about the capitalist economic system is reflected in the accompanying political system and the capitalist politicians, regardless of whether Tory or Labour.
Tory MP Sir Malcolm Rifkind shamelessly asserted this week: "It's quite unrealistic to believe MPs will go through their parliamentary career being able to simply accept a salary of £60,000 a year", as he told us mere mortals that he is "entitled" to earn "far, far more than that."

20p - or far, far more?!
With unfortunate timing for those who want working class people to put up with what we get and shut up from complaining, on the very same day as Channel 4 broadcast the sting operation that exposed Rifkind and Labour's Jack Straw promising favours and access to diplomats and EU officials for cash in their hands, the Low Pay Commission's annual report was published. It recommended a whopping 20 pence an hour rise on the UK's national minimum wage next October! 

That's £6.70 an hour if you're 21 or over; apprentices should be suitably thankful for the 7 pence rise the LPC has proposed for them, to a giddy £2.80! 

And their proposals were headlined in the same media as 'inflation-busting', the 'biggest increase since 2008', and other paroxysms of excitement at the glories on offer to millions of workers!

Artificial Increase?! 

The bosses' Confederation of British industry had no hesitation in telling the working class to shut up and count their blessings. Spokesperson for the engorged rich, Katja Hall, said the CBI "welcomes this balanced approach", adding "Any artificial increase due to political expediency will help no-one and ultimately damage one of the most successful government policies of recent years."
Artificial increase?! If the national minimum wage had increased by the 243% rise enjoyed by company executives in the 15 years since it was introduced, it wouldn't be £6.50, or £6.70, but £18.89 a hour - now!

Great Wages Robbery
These creatures at the heart of big business buy politicians to do their bidding, shaping the tax laws, employment legislation and rampant privatisation that fattens their profits with obscene success. 

Systematically driving down workers' wages as a share of national wealth has been a central mission of successive Tory and Labour governments for the past 40 years. Otherwise, if wages as a percentage of GDP were at the same level today as they were in 1975, a worker currently on £12,000 would be earning £21,300; one on £20,000 would instead enjoy £31,300; and a worker on the current average wage of £27,200 would instead be on £35,931!

Coy Crook
Two former government Ministers who played their part in hampering workers' trade unions, hammering workers' wages and helping boost capitalists' rent, interest and profit are the disgraced reprobates Sir Malcolm Rifkind and Jack Straw. 

Rifkind obviously takes the 'far, far more than £60,000' that he believes he's 'entitled to'. In fact he's on £81,936 as an MP and chairman of a Westminster Select Committee. Not to mention the £800,000 he's grabbed in the last 5 years from the 5 jobs outside parliament that he actually declared.

In the undercover journalists' sting operation, posing as a Hong Kong communications agency backed up by a fictitious Chinese businessman, Rifkind was recorded boasting:

"You'd be surprised how much free time I have. I spend a lot of time reading, I spend a lot walking. I am self-employed. Nobody pays me a salary, I have to earn my income, but when I'm not doing something I can do what I like." 

The coy crook fails to mention his parliamentary salary of £81,936, paid for by those 'nobodies', overwhelmingly working-class and lower-middle-class taxpayers. 

Self-employed or Self-seeking

Rifkind proceeded: "One sensitive issue, but I have to mention it. You mentioned there would obviously be remuneration...I would simply give it as an example, but when I did a series of presentations on the Middle East...it wasn't a whole day, it was usually a whole morning or an afternoon, and that was somewhere in the region of £5,000 to £8,000."

The 'sensitive' Sir Malcolm obviously feels 'entitled' to a damn sight more than the growing band of self-employed people that has sprung up in desperation at the lack of jobs available since the 2008 bankers' crisis. Their median incomes fell by £4,000 - a massive 28% drop - between 2002 and 2012.  

Entitled... Rifkind

Cheap at Half the Price
Labour's Jack Straw admits he earns - in one day - nearly as much as the annual wage of a worker on the £6.50 minimum on a 20-hour contract: "Normally if I'm doing a speech or something it's £5,000 a day, that's what I charge". Cheap at half Rifkind's price!
Up until he was caught on tape boasting about the price he can be bought for, Straw subscribed to Labour's promise of an £8 minimum wage...but not until 2020, making it barely any more than today's pathetic £6.50.

Bloodsuckers
When Tory millionaire David Cameron recently told the assembled business fat cats of the British Chambers of Commerce that "Britain needs a pay rise", you know there's something happening in the real world. 

First and foremost, there's a general election in two months' time. 

Secondly, the ruthless ruling class Cameron is part of are increasingly scared a revolt is growing against the outrageous system of poverty pay these exploiters rely on to make record profits, directors' bonuses and dividends to the big parasitic shareholders. 

That's how the 3 richest families in Scotland own more wealth than the poorest 20% of people, and how Britain's richest family has more in their pocket than 12.5 million people in the UK!
These capitalist bloodsuckers have drained workers dry, leaving one in five workers below the breadline; creating the longest, deepest fall in real wages since 1856; making the average Scottish worker £1,900 a year worse off than in 2010.

Stark Political Choices
One of the central issues in the May general election is poverty pay and galloping inequality. People face stark choices in those seats where the SSP has been able to afford to stand candidates. 

Vote for Labour to continue their obnoxious track record of suppressing workers' wages with the help of the Thatcherite anti-union laws they retained in 13 years of Labour government. 

Vote for their bogus headline of an £8 minimum wage, ignoring the stark reality they are only promising this figure 5 years from now, in 2020, with inflation on life's basic necessities meantime wiping out any meaningful increase this figure would mean.
Vote SNP, with their welcome but extremely limited support for the £7.85 Living Wage. Limited, because the level is still far below what is required to match the mounting cost of living, and limited because it's entirely voluntary, not legally enforceable, left to the whims and fancies of employers.
Or people disgusted by corrupt, careerists politicians can vote for the SSP, and our relentless, determined campaign for a £10 minimum living wage for all over 16 - now, not in 2020 or some other distant date.

Straw:  Usually on £5000 a day...

Socialist MPs on a Worker's Wage
MPs are so divorced from the struggles of everyday life faced by the rest of us that they have no interest in combating poverty pay. 

Their current basic salary is £67,060. That's set to rise to £74,000 after the elections. 

But even that is not enough for these greedy swine. When the body that now sets MPs' salaries - the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) - surveyed MPs' views on what they thought they should be paid, back in 2013, the AVERAGE response was £86,250!

And in stark, stinking contrast to the CBI's talk about a 20p rise on the £6.50 minimum wage avoiding the pitfalls of "any artificial increase due to political expediency", the chief executive of the IPSA justified the 11% rise for MPs, to £74,000, with the following comments to the Sunday Telegraph:

"MPs' salaries have fallen behind others working in comparable public sector roles. The £74,000 is now seen by some as at the low end. 

Pay needs to be fair to attract good candidates. They are there to represent us - to form laws, to send young people to war. It's not an easy thing to do. We want to have good people doing the job and they need to be paid fairly." 

Dry up your tears of sorrow for these poor, underpaid MPs! Tighten your belts, because 'we're all in this together'. Pity the poor warmongers who send young, working-class economic conscripts to the killing fields of Iraq, Afghanistan or elsewhere, to kill and be killed.

Nice Little Earners - and Day Jobs

Of course MPs from all the 'mainstream' pro-capitalist parties will gladly pocket the full 'rate for the job' - and on top, many of them grab hundreds of thousands more on jobs outside parliament, treating being an MP as their 'day job'.

In fact, just the ten MPs with the highest earnings outside parliament last year grabbed a combined additional income of £3,378,857. That's an average of £33,789 each! 

Top of the pile was Labour's Gordon Brown, who coined £962,516 on top of his MP's salary. 'Gorgeous' George Galloway reached 4th place on the charts with £277,350 on his Commons Register of Members' Financial Interests for 2014. 

The future is not what it used to be!

In contrast, any SSP MP or MSP will only take the average skilled worker's wage, to stay in touch with the working class we seek to represent and help fight for a sweeping redistribution of wealth through socialist measures.

Two classes; two planets! The SSP knows which class we fight for. 

The despicable Malcolm Rifkind once said, in a completely different context, "The future is not what it used to be"! 

Let's make sure of that by organising for a socialist future that banishes poverty, inequality and corrupt