Why we are going on strike

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/10/why-we-are-going-on-strike-public-sector-uk

Version 0 of 1.

Frances O'Grady: Wages cannot keep up with the cost of living

Politicians of all parties may be competing to back the living wage, but this government is less keen on paying it and even more opposed to workers taking action to get it. Today staff across the public sector, but led by local government workers – the lowest paid group of public servants – are going on strike to press for some relief after years of seeing their living standards fall. More than 450,000 local government workers earn less than the living wage, but rather than see a route out of low pay, their wage packets cannot keep up with the cost of living.

A full-time home help at the top of her pay grade in 2010 would have been on £13,189. Now she gets £481 more, but the rising cost of living has eaten all of that and more. She would have needed a rise of more than £2,000 just to maintain her standard of living. But ministers now say that the public sector pay cap will run to at least 2018, and that they will change the law on union ballots to make it near impossible to have a lawful strike. That is what they really think about low pay and the living wage.

Frances O'Grady is general secretary of the TUC

Felicity Dowling: Labour won't stand up for us, so we do it ourselves

I'm striking to defend education. Pay matters. Teachers have lost 15% in real pay – and for a young teacher that can be the difference between affording their rent or getting further into debt. As someone who has been teaching for decades, I get tired, but I'm able to work part time now thanks to the teachers' pension. Yet people starting now are being told they can't retire until they're 68. That's far too late. Primary school teachers work 60 hours a week, and secondary teachers 56 hours a week. That's bad for teachers, bad for our families, and bad for the children we teach.

There are so many more issues: academies and free schools, the former boss of Carphone Warehouse taking over Ofsted, being told I can't teach To Kill a Mockingbird. I'd like to be on strike over them all, if it was legal.

The Labour party talks about better education and the cost-of-living crisis. But when we strike to defend ourselves against the Tories' class war, Labour tells us it does not support us. What a sign of a party that has forgotten its roots and rejected its core values.

I am proud to say, though, that there is an alternative. I'm part of Left Unity, a new political party that supports strikes, supports state education, and many other vital policies such as renationalising our railways. If Labour won't stand up for us, we'll have to do it ourselves.

Felicity Dowling is a teacher, a member of the NUT union in Cheshire, and a national speaker for Left Unity

Stuart Guy: No other option but to strike

After years of zero or 1% pay rises, together with a hike in my pension contributions, I am left feeling that any financial recovery in this country has totally passed me and my public sector colleagues by. My take-home pay has effectively gone down over the last four years with no sign of it improving while the pay gap between essential frontline workers and those at the top of these services continues to grow.

The government refuses to listen to workers, or to acknowledge the facts over unaffordable pension arrangements. It appears to be setting up a whole generation of future pensioners that will be forced into poverty. I am left with no other option but to strike.

I am frustrated and angry that politicians continue to say "we are all in this together" when it is abundantly clear that the only ones "in it" are the government and big corporations that seem immune to the effects of austerity. I will be taking strike action in defence of my pension and the future of the fire service but also in defence of my rights as a proud public sector worker who has been betrayed by this government.

Stuart Guy is a Cheshire firefighter with 23 years' service