Ed Miliband could have gone further in his leader’s speech yesterday. It’s not too late - he should promise that a Labour government would restore council budgets, review pay levels and end privatisation
Before taking centre stage in Brighton yesterday, Ed Milliband had already made some significant and welcome policy announcements: a ten-fold increase in fines for breaching the National Minimum Wage, a hint that the minimum wage should rise more quickly than in recent years, action to control zero-hours contracts, childcare for all and the requirement on employers to recruit a UK apprentice for every overseas skilled worker taken on.
In the speech, he added further positive contributions, including the abolition of the bedroom tax, a pledge to build 200,000 homes a year and an energy bill freeze.
It’s not bad for starters. At the same time, Labour’s poll ratings are looking healthier and life for those of us anxiously waiting for something positive and definite to campaign around is looking up.
As head of Unison’s local government, police and justice section, there are additional priorities I would like Ed and his team to put on their list. The first of those would be the restoration of local government budgets to their pre-2010 levels, adjusted for inflation. Some councils – particularly Labour ones in the North – will have been deprived of 50% of their income by 2015 through cruel and biased financial settlements.
This threatens the hollowing out of local government and destruction of over-stretched local networks and communities. It means the withdrawal of vital services to our most vulnerable neighbours and decreasing demand in our local – and UK – economies. Council orders to local businesses are drying up and local government workers – deprived of 19% of their incomes since 2010 – are spending less and less in local shops.
It all contributes to a UK economy stripped of demand and vitality, with only the palest green shoots of recovery peeping through. A new constitutional settlement, giving rights and extended powers to local government should be part of the same package.
So too should be a review or inquiry into the pay and conditions of local government workers, with the aim of raising them to at least NHS standards. A shocking 502,000 of my members earn below the Living Wage because of long-term, below-inflation pay awards and a three-year pay freeze. There is constant erosion of conditions still enjoyed by other public sector groups, driven by cuts. There can be no justification for this inequality and it will demand swift action by a new Labour government.
Tackling the wholesale deregulation and casualisation of the labour market – private and public – comes near the top of my list for Labour. Exploitation of interns, zero-hours contacts, widespread breaches of the minimum wage, discrimination against pregnant women, feeble application of equal pay laws and (declining) poverty pay are not random and unconnected features of our 21st century economy. They are the collective culmination of the neo-liberal project, in which deregulation has created a decline in workers’ share of profits from 65% in 1973 to around 50% today, bargain basement working conditions and a de-skilled workforce.
Ending this workplace nightmare will require not just new labour market controls and strong legislation (though it will certainly need those, Ed), but a very critical scrutiny of ‘post distribution’ tax credits and in-work benefits – in many instances a state subsidy to employers who can afford to fund a Living Wage and decent conditions. If Labour can find a new name for it, ‘pre-distribution’ of profit through decent pay and conditions, pensions, childcare and training must replace a system in which state subsidised, prospering employers can hoard a current £85bn in reserves while refusing to guarantee regular work or decent wages.
Making the most of taxpayers’ money and a better deal for workers will not be possible without an end to neo-liberalism’s favoured offspring – privatisation – which is at the heart of the downward pressure on pay, conditions and secure employment. Take home care workers – now outsourced to the private and voluntary sectors – on zero-hours contracts, below minimum wage pay because of unpaid travel time and providing nursing services without proper training. At the extreme end of the privatisation experience, but by no means atypical. And look at just recent instances of hugely fraudulent contracts that see the taxes of ‘hard working families’ wasted.
So where’s the money coming from? No-one wants to scare off an electorate not yet convinced of Labour’s ability to manage the economy, but there are some obvious solutions: Reform of the banking system and making tax fair would both be popular. Gather in at least £32bn in uncollected taxes, £90bn from tax evasion and £23bn from a Maid Marian Tax and we’re really motoring! Clear rules, powers and resources for HMRC would be needed. An end to public sector redundancies would save almost £30,000 for each job lost and there’s that income from house building too.
Let’s remind ourselves that we still live in the world’s seventh-richest economy, that there is plenty of money to go round if it’s fairly distributed and a much better world looks possible. Simples, Ed. Just do it!
