THE fresh calls for “wage restraint” from Tory Chancellor Jeremy Hunt and Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey are as insulting to working people as they are predictable.
In the first instance, we should be clear that the “record pay increases” being talked about by the state and monopoly media are anything but.
Sky-high inflation continues to massively outstrip wage rises. The retail price index rate of inflation still stood at over 11.3 per cent in May 2023. This remains at more than double the average wage rises in the public sector (5.6 per cent) and well over the average rise in the private sector (7.3 per cent).
Workers are facing massive real-terms cuts to wages and living standards.
Not so long ago we were told that it was the war in Ukraine that was the real cause of spiralling inflation. We were told to grin and bear it in an act of “solidarity.”
Now we’re being told it’s the fault of greedy workers and encouraged by the Bank of England boss to “see the job through” so that “the British economy can thrive.”
But who is really “thriving” in an economy like this?
In reality, all the talk of wages driving up inflation is a smokescreen for the real causes and forces behind the attack on working-class living standards and rights.
Prices are skyrocketing because the monopolies and big business are seeking to maintain and increase their rate of profit and also because of profiteering with the excuse of the war in Ukraine, particularly by the energy monopolies which has a marked knock-on effect down the supply chain.
Research by Unite the Union found that the profits of the largest UK companies are now 89 per cent higher than before the pandemic and that key industries including the energy sector are responsible for more than 57 per cent of all inflation.
Meek parliamentary committee questions to supermarket monopolies and big banks has been the full extent of any government action to combat this rank profiteering. Profit restraint is very rarely discussed and certainly never enforced.
The Tory government have given a smokescreen and full support to the monopolies and financial interests they were elected to serve — at the same time as they seek to transfer the blame onto the real victims, working people.
What we face isn’t a cost-of-living crisis — it’s a cost-of-profits crisis. It is imperative that we win the labour movement and working people in general to a class understanding of this fact.
We are in a class struggle.
We can be certain that the capitalist class will always be seeking to drive down wages as far as possible and maximise profits. It is imperative that workers fight with even greater intensity to defend and increase the value of wages.
Ruling-class propaganda around wage restraint threatens to infect and confuse working people if it is not actively resisted by the labour movement.
These were arguments Marx and other socialist thinkers had to overcome in the middle of the 19th century as trade unions were a growing force. They were overcome then. They must be overcome today.
Just as then, we must uphold the essential role of the fight for wages, of trade unions and of the strike weapon — and fight to develop all of these in practice with renewed vigour.
But Marx was also clear that working people would face a perpetual battle and would always remain commodities to be exploited under capitalism until it and the wages system were abolished and replaced by socialism.
The battles for wages being fought today will help to build the labour movement into the force it needs to be to win that struggle. This also requires a clear and revolutionary political and ideological battle to be fought.
Building both of these fights today, in unison, is the challenge of our times.
