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BIG business has refused to let a good crisis go to waste, according to union Unite, as corporate profits soar by an astonishing 89 per cent while working people continue to struggle.
In a new report, the union has shown that profits for firms in the FTSE 350 across key sectors of the economy have continued to rise while wages lose value and the cost of living grows at the fastest rate in a generation.
Profits being made by the “big four” energy companies — rising by 84 per cent over this period — have been well publicised.
But the report details the levels of profits being racked up in other essential sectors, with agribusiness profits up 255 per cent, oil refineries making 366 per cent more per barrel, and the “big eight” shipping companies seeing their profits grow by an eye-watering 20,650 per cent.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “We’re in the midst of a cost-of-profiteering crisis.
“Our new research exposes where and how the economy is being rigged against workers — from supermarkets to energy bills, oil refineries to transport, we’re all paying price.”
Unite argues that the profiteering identified in the report is at the heart of the cost-of-living crisis, with the Child Poverty Action Group estimating there to be 15 million people living in fuel poverty in Britain.
The Trussell Trust charity says it also handed out 1.3 million emergency food parcels between April and September last year, as the major UK supermarkets doubled their pre-pandemic profits to some £3.2 billion in 2021.
Ms Graham added: “The profiteering crisis isn’t just a few bad apples, it’s systematic across our broken economy.
“Entire industries are choosing to take advantage of a crisis, resulting in the spiralling prices of goods we all need.
“When profits of the biggest firms have spiked by 89 per cent, don’t tell me the money isn’t there for the pay rises workers deserve.
“It’s only by taking on runaway profiteering that we can end the cost-of-living crisis.
“Politicians can make different choices. It is high time they woke up to the corporate greed that is engulfing every sector of the British economy and challenged it by taking on the profiteers.”
