Fight for £12 an hour and join a union

By Lucas Smith Grant, Young Socialists, Aberdeen

The fight against poverty pay has never been more relevant as during this crisis. Jobs across Scotland and in the rest of the world have been put under threat due to the drive to protect profits of bosses.

This is not even to mention those who are unemployed who will undoubtedly see their prospects for returning to work drop dramatically in the months to come. Working conditions are also likely to be seriously impacted, workers will have to continue to deal with poverty wages, pay cuts and attempts to lengthen the working day.

Apprentices will also suffer, being forced to live on the rubbish wages they are given with a minimum of £4.15 in the UK, being forced into poverty while they simply try to get trained in their chosen vocation.

This is all while many of the biggest private employers; supermarkets, delivery services, and others who have reaped the rewards of this crisis, rake in huge profits. Just recently it was reported that Tesco was set to rake in £300m of additional profits by the end of the year.

This is all while the average wage in the company is £8.38 an hour in the UK, with even less offered to young, new, and unskilled workers in their company. This all comes with these workers are being hailed as heroes in the press and by big figures in private industry, such as the CEO of Morrisons.

Frankly, the hero status of key workers, something which they undeniably deserve, is immaterial when these workers are forced to live in poverty through the poor wages offered.

£12 an hour is the current minimum wage that we need to fight for, for all workers in all sectors. This would be a step towards a living wage of £15 an hour the trade unions should fight for.

We also need to fight for a 35 hour working week without loss of pay, the eradication of zero hour and insecure contracts, and an end to workfare schemes. To achieve this, workers will need to engage in a fightback against the bosses.

The scare tactics by the bosses utilised when the minimum wage was first introduced will make a major comeback. unionise Unionisation is vital in all workplaces to give workers a voice, the need for trade unions is especially vital when conditions are under threat and mass redundancies on the cards in times of crisis.

Even precarious hospitality workers in companies like Wetherspoons were able to secure furlough pay through unionisation when the pandemic hit.

A unionised workplace is very powerful when compared to a non-unionised one and a largely unionised industry is tenfold as powerful to get the voices of workers heard by the bosses.

To get the conditions that workers need unionisation is the road that must be embarked upon in every workplace. We appeal to all young workers to join the trade unions and get active in the Young Socialists – Young Workers Rights Campaign.