TUC general secretary PAUL NOWAK speaks to the Morning Star’s Berny Torre about the increasing frustration the trade union movement feels at a government that promised change, but has been too slow to bring it about
THE trade unions are all that stand between the working class and catastrophe. Inflation is going through the roof. Businesses facing unmanageable increases in costs are already closing and shedding jobs.
For workers the value of wages, having been stagnant for 12 years, is now falling. Offers of wage increases which are less than the rate of inflation are, in effect, wage cuts.
Unions are fighting back. But unions are only able to negotiate in companies where they have collective bargaining rights. Collective bargaining used to cover 85 per cent of workers.