PRESIDENT’S COLUMN

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: april 2022 :: RMTnews 25 ground, providing search and rescue, first aid, emergency healthcare and shelter. Donations to the British Red Cross’s Haiti Earthquake Appeal will support this response. Red Cross emergency specialists have been deployed to Haiti to support the Haitian Red Cross’s response to those affected, particularly the most vulnerable people. How can I help those affected by the earthquake? Donations to the British Red Cross’s Haiti Earthquake Appeal will help scale up the Haitian Red Cross’s response on the ground. “The area affected is vast – bigger than initial reports suggested,” said Richard Blewitt, the British Red Cross’s director of international. “Our number one priority is supporting the Haitian Red Cross as it continues search and rescue efforts and gets first aid and supplies to the injured and people who can’t go back to damaged homes. “With hundreds dead, people still trapped, and a major storm on the way, the situation is extremely serious. With this in mind, we’ve launched the Haiti Earthquake Appeal to help extend the response in Haiti, a country which was already facing multiple challenges including the ongoing impact of the earthquake in 2010, recent major storms and Covid-19”. HAITI EARTHQUAKE FACTS • 2.2 million people are estimated to have felt the earthquake • Over 800,000 are estimated to be affected • Over 2,100 people have died • 12,200 people are reported to be injured • Over 115,000 houses have been damaged or destroyed For more information go to: https://donate.redcross.org.uk/ap peal/haiti-earthquake-appeal President’s column Trade unions exist for three interlinked reasons: wages, prices and profits. Media pundits and politicians often claim that price rises are caused by wage increases. Nothing could be further from the truth - as your pay slip will confirm. On February 4 this year, Andrew Bailey, Governor of the Bank of England (who was paid £575,538 in 2021) called for ‘wage restraint’ to keep down inflation. What on earth was he talking about? Wage restraint? Most workers have not had a pay rise for three years. Retail Price Inflation in the twelve months to March 2022 was a whopping nine per cent. From April 6 2022, your National Insurance contributions went up from 12 to 13.25 per cent (a rise of over 10 per cent). Home energy bills rocketed by 50 per cent in April 2022 and will increase again in October. Diesel fuel at the pumps today costs 177p/litre, up from 112p/litre two years ago, a rise of almost 60 per cent. None of these price increases were caused by pay rises. All are direct attacks on working class living standards. Unless something changes, next year more families will face the choice between heating or eating. Financial journalist, Martin Lewis warned this month of possible 'civil unrest' as taxes, food and fuel prices rise. “When breadwinners cannot provide, anger brews and civil unrest brews – and I do not think we are very far off. I would like to see more. But this is a Conservative government”, he said. However, sky-rocketing price rises in the shops and at petrol pumps are a bonanza for banks and energy companies. The Bank of England hiked interest rates to 0.75 per cent in March 2022 to tackle rising inflation. Higher interest rates mean higher bank profits. BP made a profit of $12.85 billion in 2021, their highest for eight years. Next year will be even better for BP’s shareholders. While there have been wage increases in some shortage sectors (such as road haulage), for most rail, maritime and transport workers wages are stagnant or are falling in real terms. Real wages will only rise if workers assert their collective bargaining power through their trade unions. So, if wage rises don’t cause inflation, what links our wages with the price of essential goods and services and the eye-watering profits of energy companies, banks and financial institutions in the City of London? Wages, prices and profits are linked through their relationship to class struggle. When your wages fall, while prices and profits rise, the capitalist class are winning. When we force employers to pay more of the surplus value we create to us in wages and take less in profits for themselves, we are winning back a small proportion of that surplus. This is the story of trade unionism. When six farm labourers met under a Sycamore tree in the Dorset village of Tolpuddle in 1833, they paid a shilling to join the Friendly Society of Agricultural Labourers and swore an oath not to accept a wage cut. Those farm labourers lived in poverty on 7 shillings a week and demanded an increase to 10 shillings. Instead, the farmer cut their wages to 6 shillings and in revenge for demanding a wage rise, they were put on trial accused of administering a ‘secret oath’. Dorchester magistrates sentenced them to seven years penal labour in Australia, but the mass public protest that followed led to the birth of a trade union movement that campaigned and won a pardon and freedom for the Tolpuddle Martyrs. Alex Gordon VOTE YES TO BUST THE PAY FREEZE