theActivist
Issue 113
members in Usdaw
Retail and the fight against
the cost of living crisis -
organise for £15/hour pay
With the cost of living crisis
hitting all workers hard –
supermarket workers – hailed
as heroes during the
pandemic are particularly
badly affected given our
relatively low wages to start
with.
Usdaw’s most recent survey
shows that 75% of members
responding had to use
unsecured borrowing to pay
the bills, and 40% are eating
less food to save money.
Therefore it is unsurprising
that companies are being
forced into unprecedented
measures, such as additional
pay rises outside of annual
negotiations, providing free
supplies of staple foods and
increased discounts for staff.
But given RPI inflation has
reached 12.3% in September
then these pay rises – such as
in Sainsbury’s where this
years two pay increases come
to 7.9% (from £9.50 to
£10.25) - are inadequate.
NSSN pre-TUC
action summit:
Sunday 16th October,
1pm Holiday Inn
Brighton Seafront, 137
Kings Road, Brighton,
BN1 2JF
See www.shopstewards.net
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They mean the living
standards of retail workers
falling even further behind.
That retail bosses could make
more substantial pay rises is
shown by both ununionized
Lidl and Aldi doing just that,
with Lidl’s second pay rise
taking the basic rate of pay to
£10.90, with their pay rises
this year working out at
10-14.5%. Likewise, from
January, IKEA plans to raise
wages to £10.90, which is
also the new Living Wage
Foundation endorsed rate.
The provision of supplies of
staple foods is perhaps the
least taxing when these are a
basic sale item of stores. In
Tesco’s these reportedly
include “breakfast items,
pasta, noodle snacks, bread
and spreads, fresh fruit, hot
and cold drinks, as well as
toiletries such as deodorant
and sanitary products.”
But many of these stores
would have had subsidised
staff canteens in the past,
serving cheap hot meals,
sometimes for less than a £1
for a full meal. These have
been replaced either by
private companies charging
much more, or had staff cuts
whereby they now generally
offer only pre-made
ENGLAND & WALES
sandwiches or microwavable
meals.
Whilst Usdaw’s press release
on Sainsbury’s doesn’t
mention it, the IKEA one does
point out that even £10.90 is
still over a pound away from
Usdaw’s immediate demand
on the minimum wage of £12,
let alone £15 an hour, which
the union set as its goal at this
year’s ADM.
But nowhere is it raised what
the union’s strategy is for
winning this demand. Simply
asking our employers to part
with more of their hefty profits
isn’t working. The day of
action with high street stalls
in around 20 locations in
August, was a start, but this
should be repeated on a
bigger scale, discussing at
every branch meeting of
Usdaw what activity they
could do with support from
Area Organisers. Rallies for
increasing the minimum wage
should be organised in major
cities across the country.
But ultimately the way to shift
our employers into paying us Jointhe fightback
higher wages, is that when we
reject inadequate pay offers,
such as the pitiful 2% rise
offered by Morrisons this year, ● England & Wales
that should be backed up by socialistparty.org.uk
moving towards balloting for ● Scotland
Continued on next page >
September 2022
IRELAND
Join the union and help us
organise for
• Pay rises at least in line with
inflation for all in retail,
distribution and manufacturing.
•Raise the minimum wage to
£15 an hour for all
•Increase staffing levels in store
to carry out any necessary
cleaning & hygiene duties, bring
back in house outsourced
cleaners. Full time contracts to all
those who want them
•Elected local health & safety
committees/reps, including
overseeing when and if to lift any
measures brought in to deal with
Covid
•No waiting times or lower rates
for sick pay
•Scrap the 2 year qualifying
period - Full employment rights
from day one
• Scrap performance targets
•Time and a half for all overtime
worked over contracted hours
•Reinstate lost paid breaks and
premium payments, double pay
on Sundays and time and a half
on Saturdays. No extension of
Sunday trading
•Trade union control over
changing staff duties, hiring and
firing, and opening time changes
•35 hour working week without
loss of pay
•Open the books to trade union
inspection if companies say they
can’t afford these measures
• Bailout workers, not the bosses
and the speculators. Campaign
for nationalisation to save jobs.
•Democratically elected
committees of workers and
consumers to control prices and
any rationing policies at all levels.
•For socialist planning to put the
needs of workers first, not
shareholders profits.
Join Usdaw - usdaw.org.uk/join
JOINTHE
SOCIALISTS
socialistpartyscotland.org.uk
● Ireland militant-left.org
theActivist
Support strikers, not Starmer’s Labour
In a recent article in the
Huffington Post, Usdaw’s
General Secretary, Paddy Lillis
has hit out at Unite’s
counterpart Sharon Graham
for her criticism of Keir
Starmer, saying that she
should train her fire on the Tory
government rather than the
Labour leader.
Instead of calling for a “degree
of silence” from Sharon
Graham, Lillis should instead
be looking at the ocean of
silence from Starmer’s less
than steadfast opposition that
has allowed this Tory
government to get away with
far more than it would have if
Starmer was himself taking the
fight to the Tories. Even more
serious than Starmer’s lack of
opposition has been his
complicity in rolling out
attacks on the very people that
the so-called “party of labour”
is meant to represent.
It is no accident that Starmer
has been the focus of Sharon
Graham’s ire when she and her
members have had to wage a
bitter months long campaign
including sustained strike
< From previous page
industrial action. In Tesco
distribution where a number of
sites successfully balloted for
strike action last year, then
inflation busting pay rises have
been secured in sites which
have had negotiations this year.
Whilst retail workers being
ballot for strike action has not
been common in recent times,
then organising some of the
actions above could help
mobilise members to take part.
Moreover, strategies like dis-
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the bulletin of CWI members in Usdaw
action against a Labour nationalising industries such rather than a “degree of
Council in Coventry. as rail, mail and the utilities silence” we need more trade
which he had pledged to union leaders speaking up,
For Lillis to say that “Starmer uphold in his leadership talking with each other and
has demonstrated time and campaign he has coordinating strike action.
time again that he’s on the demonstrated in one fell Similarly, there needs to be a
side of workers” flies in the swoop that his word counts for discussion in the organised
face of the reality when he has nothing and his interests are in labour movement on the
consistently shown the serving big business not the building of independent
complete opposite. Starmer is millions facing an apocalyptic political representation that
leading a party that has spent cost of living crisis. will deliver policies such as the
far more in Coventry on trying £15 an hour agreed by many
to break a strike by bringing in Lillis goes on to say “Anyone unions and which forms a
agency workers than it was that’s doing the Labour Party central plank of the Enough is
prepared to spend on giving down isn’t doing us a favour.” Enough campaign.
the bin workers the pay rise Yet, it’s the Labour Party itself
they were looking for. that is doing itself down by It is as clear as day to those
strangling its internal already engaged in strike
Add to that ordering his MPs to democracy, turfing out action that Starmer’s Labour
stay away from RMT pickets thousands upon thousands of will not come to their defence.
and sacking his shadow members on spurious grounds Starmer is the bosses’ man not
transport minister Sam Tarry and turning its back on the ours and if we’re to “let the
for doing just that and his unions that brought it into Labour leadership get on with
unwillingness to show anything being in the first place. taking the fight to the Tories
remotely resembling support and holding them to account”
to the hundreds of thousands Lillis is correct when he says as Paddy Lillis suggests, we’ll
of workers striking for better “He [Starmer] understands the be waiting a very long time
pay and to protect jobs and industrial action that’s taking indeed. It’s time instead for
conditions and it’s easy to see place at the minute” where he workers to stand their own
why Starmer doesn’t have the is wrong is on whose side candidates who will give 100%
confidence of your average Starmer is fighting and so support to our struggles.
shop steward or picket
supervisor. Moreover, with
Starmer’s wholesale scrapping
of policies such as
aggregated ballots or targeting
particular stores with higher
union density as a first step to
build confidence could be
tested out. But inaction in the
face of the financial challenges
facing low paid retail workers
can lead to members losing
confidence in Usdaw’s ability to
change things, with the
dangers of further declines in
union density, whereas armed
with a fighting strategy many
more members can be won to
the union.
Usdaw members, including members of Usdaw’s EC as well as Activist
suporters, at the RMT strikes over pay and safety - Kier Starmer shamefully
threatened to sack Labour frontbenchers for supporting these strikes