Greedy pigs no good for UK

Disastrous economic policies are dividing Britain and destroying hopes of recovery, Unite general secretary stated today, (September 8).

Moving a motion on collective bargaining, Unite general secretary Len McCluskey called for collective bargaining and the new to be reintroduced to arrest the decades long fall in the value of wages, and give workers a fairer share of the wealth they create.

He warned that over the past 40 years collective bargaining has fallen from covering 80 per cent of the workforce to just 20 per cent today, leaving millions of workers at the mercy of employers who are only prepared to pay poverty wages.

Speaking in the debate, Len McCluskey said, it was the Tory PM, Benjamin Disraeli who said that Britain was two nations.

“He would certainly feel right at home today,” commented Len.

“Workers in our country are today facing the longest drop in their living standards since the 1870s when Disraeli was Prime Minister. But to be fair to him – he saw the class divisions in Britain as a problem to be solved.  His Conservative successor in Number 10 seems to rejoice in them.”

Len said that every measure David Cameron and George Osborne took was designed to increase the squeeze on workers’ living standards and widen the already scandalous inequality gap.

“David Cameron used to talk of the Big Society. The truth is he’s created Two Societies – a society of Bullingdon Bullies, country suppers with Rebekah Brooks, tax cuts for the rich, a society which is a happy home for the hedge fund managers who fund the Tory Party.

“That’s not so much the Big Society, more like the Greedy Pig Society.”

With the ‘greedy pigs’ on one side, Len spoke of the plight of ‘a society of people in fear’.

He said fear was rife with millions afraid of losing their jobs or their homes, being able to pay the heating bills, and fearful for the future of the NHS.

And for the first time in anyone’s memory, “we have an economy which is apparently growing – while living standards for ordinary people are still falling.

“To misquote another famous Tory, ‘Never, in the field of human economics, has so much been produced by so many to the benefit of so few.’

He called for a ‘social rebalancing’ which only trade unions could deliver.

He concluded, “Collective bargaining can ensure that workers get back more of the wealth they produce. Trade unions stand for the productive economy and the people who are the real wealth-creators. In Downing Street they represent only the parasites.”