UNIONS called for an end to “rampant profiteering” as official figures showed food inflation remains at a painfully high 9.2 per cent in the run-up to Christmas.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said yesterday’s larger-than-expected drop in overall inflation would not offset the real-terms fall in wages this Christmas.
She said: “Headline inflation might be slowing, but workers know their wages aren’t going as far as they did two years ago.
“Even the competition regulator now admits what Unite has said all along: that firms have been exploiting the cost-of-living crisis to raise prices excessively.
“It’s time the government and Bank of England tackled the rampant profiteering in our economy to get inflation under control.”
Responding to the figures showing CPI inflation slowing to 3.9 per cent and RPI inflation to 5.3 per cent, TUC general secretary Paul Nowak added: “Today’s inflation figures will provide scant relief for hard-pressed families. Prices are still going up — just a bit more slowly.
“Household budgets remain under immense pressure. And many families will struggle with the cost of Christmas, with food and energy bills sky high.”
Activists blockade Eaton Mission Systems in Bournemouth Photo: Workers for a Free Palestine
FOUR arms factories producing parts for Israeli fighter jets were shut down in protests by more than 1,000 trade unionists today.
Campaigners calling for an end to Britain’s complicity in war crimes being committed in Gaza blockaded sites at Bournemouth, Glasgow, Brighton and Lancashire.
The demonstrations were organised by campaign group Workers for a Free Palestine in co-ordination with workers in France, Denmark and the Netherlands, involving members from trade unions including Unite, Unison, GMB, the NEU, the BMA, UCU, Bectu and BFAWU.
The campaign group said they targeted sites run by defence giant BAE Systems which produces parts for the F-35 stealth combat jet currently being used by Israel to bombard Gaza.
More than 600 blockaded Eaton Mission Systems in Bournemouth alone.
A spokeswoman for Workers for a Free Palestine said: “The fighter jets these factories help to produce are being used to imprison the people of Gaza in a death trap.
“Workers all over Britain are rising up for Palestine, saying we will not allow arms used in a genocide to be supplied in our name and funded by our taxes.
Every single state in the world has a positive duty to intervene to prevent the Genocide in Gaza now, not after a court has reached a determination of genocide. This is made crystal clear in para 431 of the International Court of Justice judgment in Bosnia vs Serbia:
This obviously does not mean that the obligation to prevent genocide only comes into being when perpetration of genocide commences ; that would be absurd, since the whole point of the obligation is to prevent, or attempt to prevent, the occurrence of the act. In fact, a State’s obligation to prevent, and the corresponding duty to act, arise at the instant that the State learns of, or should normally have learned of, the existence of a serious risk that genocide will be committed. From that moment onwards, if the State has available to it means likely to have a deterrent effect on those suspected of preparing genocide, or reasonably suspected of harbouring specific intent (dolus specialis), it is under a duty to make such use of these means as the circumstances permit.
This case was specifically on the application of the Genocide Convention. That the ICJ has ruled there is a positive duty on states to act to prevent genocide makes it even more astonishing to me that no state has invoked the Genocide Convention over the blatant genocide being committed by Israel in Gaza.
Let’s be clear. These Conservative anti-strike laws are a dog’s dinner – they’re shambolic and unworkable and will frustrate employers, workers and unions alike.
Paul Nowak is the General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress
MPs are to consider further draconian restrictions on the right to strike in the form of compulsory minimum service levels during strike action in ambulance service, rail and the border force.
Also in front of the House of Commons is a code of practice that seeks to force unions to act as the employer’s policeman.
In their rush to attack unions, ministers are even attempting to sneak in further anti-union restrictions, including absurd rules on picketing.
Let’s be clear. These Conservative anti-strike laws are a dog’s dinner – they’re shambolic and unworkable and will frustrate employers, workers and unions alike.
Rather than dealing with the problems working people face, the government is trying to tie unions up in more red tape.
And these new laws will stoke tensions between employers and workers, poison industrial relations and drag out disputes.
Regulations for minimum service levels have now been laid in rail, the ambulance service and border security. Ministers are also consulting on rules affecting workers in hospital settings, schools, universities and fire services.
The government has said regulations for the pernicious Strikes Act will be rushed into force by the end of the year.
A massive 1 in 5 workers in Britain – or 5.5 million workers – are at risk of losing their right to strike.
Standing in a sunny Parliament Square surrounded by a colourful mix of trade union flags, Mick Lynch spoke to LFF about the troubling state of democracy in Britain.
The RMT general secretary was a speaker at the emergency protest organised ahead of the final Parliament vote on the anti-strike legislation, Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill.
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For Lynch, the anti-strike legislation comes under a broader attempt by the Tory government to clamp down on any kind of opposition, warning that a threat to trade union power is a threat to democracy.
“The government has got an attitude towards anything they don’t agree with, any kind of dissent. It could be politically or more broadly socially, where if they don’t agree with people, they try to ban them,” said Lynch.
“We got these police bills and these counter-demonstration bills where people will be stopped from demonstrating or protesting.
“We saw that during the coronation, one of the most passive pieces of civil disobedience if you like, was banned in effect and people were put in jail for the day.
“They’re trying to clamp down on any dissent, and I think that’s a very troubling state, and it’s time for the British people to wake up to that and see that if trade unions, which are an organic part of life and grow in every society, if they’re not allowed to function properly, democracy in this country is in a lot of trouble.
“We’ve got to make sure that people are out opposing that and we’ve got to make sure that people understand the issues.
UNIONS will be taking legal action against the government’s strike-buster agency worker regulations after the High Court granted permission for the challenge today. [yesterday]
The judicial review of anti-worker rules has been brought by 11 trade unions, co-ordinated by the TUC, to protect the right to strike.
Reports suggest that the government is considering new ways to undermine industrial action amid a surge in strikes across the country.
The 11 unions — Aslef, BFAWU, FDA, GMB, NEU, NUJ, POA, PCS, RMT, Unite and Usdaw — have taken up the case against the government’s new regulations, which allow agency workers to fill in for striking workers.
The unions argue that the regulations are unlawful as ministers failed to consult unions as required by the Employment Agencies Act and as they violate fundamental trade union rights protected by Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
