Hundreds of protesters gathered at Portland Place in central London to demand action from the Government to combat the cost of living crisis. The crowds marched to Parliament Square for a rally with speakers including Frances O’Grady, general secretary of the TUC, which is organising the event.
The TUC says its research suggests that workers have lost almost £20,000 since 2008 because pay has not kept pace with inflation. Banners reading “cut war not welfare” and “end fuel poverty, insulate homes now” are being carried by some demonstrators.
People in the crowd whistled, cheered and clapped as a blue flare was set off to mark the beginning of the march. Loud music, including the songs 9 To 5, I Need A Dollar and Money, Money, Money were played through large speakers, with those gathered singing and dancing along.
Signs and banners reading “Nurses not nukes”, “Don’t get angry, get active” and “Free Assange” could be seen.
Ben Robinson, 25, who works for a housing charity in Brixton, south London, and Frankie Brown, 24, a teacher, are both at the protest.
Ms Brown said: “Every day I have got kids in my class who are going home to homes where they don’t have enough to eat.”
Mr Robinson said: “We’ve got residents who are coming into our offices, who are choosing between feeding their own kids, not themselves, their own kids, and paying rent and heating, and that is just not a choice that anyone should have to face, you know, in the fourth biggest economy in the world.”
He added: “I don’t think there’s enough recognition in the Government, actually how bad things are going to be and really are for people, real people who don’t have enough money.
“And the growing disparity between the very richest in society and the other 99% of people who just don’t have enough to get by, so hopefully this outlines that, but who knows?”
General secretary Frances O’Grady said it was “gut-wrenching” to hear how workers were struggling, with no safety net to fall back on.
She told the PA news agency that the Conservatives were now the “party of pay cuts”, accusing the Government of turning its back on those who made such “extraordinary sacrifices” by keeping working during the virus crisis.
She said she had heard a harrowing story of children keeping back part of their school lunch to take home for their evening dinner.
“Prices are sky-rocketing, yet boardroom bonuses are back to bumper levels. Everyone who works for a living deserves to earn a decent living, but UK workers are suffering the longest and harshest squeeze on their earnings in modern history.
“If we don’t get pay rising across the economy, we will just keep lurching from crisis to crisis.
“This cost-of-living emergency has not come out of the blue. It is the result of more than a decade of standstill wages.”
Ms O’Grady accused the Prime Minister of “cynically abandoning” his commitment to a high-wage economy.
“He and other ministers are treating workers like Oliver Twist by telling them not to dare ask for a decent pay rise. The last thing we need right now is for wages to be held down.
“We cannot be a country where nurses have to use foodbanks to get by.”
Royal College of Nursing general secretary Pat Cullen said: “Ministers’ failure to give nursing fair pay – including more than a decade of real-terms pay cuts – is having a devastating impact on their own wellbeing and the safety of care for their patients.
“The cost-of-living crisis has brought this to a head, with too many nursing staff struggling to feed their families or put fuel in their cars.”
Unite leader Sharon Graham said: “Wage restraint? How about calling on the UK’s millionaire bosses to show restraint. In the last year of the pandemic, the UK’s top CEO’s hiked their own wages by an average 29% to £2.6 million.
“Don’t hear anyone in the media saying they’re holding the country to ransom.”
Green Party co-leader, Carla Denyer, said: “We fully support the TUC’s call for an increase in wages, with public sector increases being funded by the Treasury.
“The cost-of-living crisis is actually an income crisis. It is vital that wages keep pace with inflation this year.
“We also need to see a reversing of the real-term wage losses that took place during the Tories’ era of austerity.”
