STAND UP TODAY, SAVE TOMORROW – NORWICH SAYS ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

by Rowan Gavin

“We reside in distinctive, distinctive occasions.”

The phrases of Eddie Dempsey, Assistant General Secretary of the RMT, chatting with the packed-out rally for the Enough is Enough marketing campaign at Epic Studios in Norwich on Tuesday evening. He’s proper. Many are saying they will’t keep in mind a time when so many have been so hard-off on this nation. Meanwhile, by various measures, the richest few have by no means been so wealthy. My hire and the speed on my electrical energy meter have gone up this yr, and with extra value hikes on the horizon I’m nervous about what it’s gonna value to remain heat this winter. My pals, colleagues, and virtually everybody I converse to are going through the identical issues. But regardless of all that, one factor makes this second really feel distinctive to me greater than the rest: the power of working individuals’s will to battle again.

Despite being introduced just some days earlier than going forward, the Norwich rally shortly exceeded anticipated attendance and extra tickets needed to be launched. On the evening, the queue was round the block in both directions. Epic was at full capability, with round 850 in attendance. This follows the sample for the Enough is Enough marketing campaign, a joint effort on the a part of commerce unions and group organisations throughout the nation to “construct energy in each single group”, as host of the Norwich occasion and outgoing chair of Young Labour Jess Barnard put it. Prior rallies in London, Manchester and Liverpool in latest weeks have smashed expectations for attendance, whereas over half 1,000,000 have signed as much as the marketing campaign on-line in just some weeks.

The audio system at Tuesday’s occasion have been clear that the severity of this disaster shouldn’t be understated, notably within the context of the continuing results of the Covid-19 pandemic. As political researcher and Tribune author Taj Ali bluntly put it, “Inequality fairly actually kills”. In the latter half of 2021 there have been 2.5 occasions extra Covid-19 deaths in essentially the most disadvantaged areas of England than within the least disadvantaged. The variety of households affected by gasoline poverty is predicted to rise to as many as 12 million by January – that’s half or extra of all households within the nation. “There are many extra people who find themselves more likely to die due to authorities inaction” on power invoice will increase, Ali reminded us.

There are not any heroes in Westminster.

He additionally offered one other vital reminder: talking of his experiences rising up in Luton, he stated “now we have at all times had a price of dwelling, and now we have at all times had a disaster.” Dempsey echoed this: “for all of my life, requirements of dwelling for working class individuals have been falling”. And protest singer Grace Petrie, who carried out a brief set to shut the rally, reminded us that it has been the identical for 12 years of Tory rule – and that most of the roots of the present disaster have been planted by the Major and Blair governments. From Blair’s unlawful wars to the bankers’ 2008 collapse to Cameron’s austerity, May’s spineless response to Grenfell and Johnson’s lethal Covid corruption, generations have grown up in crises attributable to the highly effective. And at each flip they take extra from us. We have discovered the exhausting means a easy lesson – as Ali put it, “There isn’t any hero in Westminster coming to save lots of us.”

“We have a brand new Prime Minister in Britain,” shock visitor Jeremy Corbyn introduced, to pantomime boos from the group. “And it appears that evidently she’s obtained an issue: I’m dwelling rent-free in her head!” Jokes apart, the true issues are many, and Truss doesn’t have options. Her speak of an “aspiration nation” with “high-paying jobs” is not only farcical: it’s purposeful misdirection. One of her first said targets as PM is to crack down on union powers, in a bid to restrict the sorts of motion that might actually enhance wages and dealing circumstances. Like Johnson, she parrots claims of gratitude in direction of the working individuals whose efforts saved lives and livelihoods throughout the pandemic, whilst she brazenly strikes to strip those self same individuals of their rights to organise. As Unison regional organiser Cameron Matthews put it, “I’m but to see ‘gratitude’ from Boris Johnson cashed down the native Asda to place meals on households’ tables”. Dempsey made it much more plain: “Their coverage is to criminalise dissent in opposition to poverty.” Meanwhile, Starmer’s Labour disavows placing employees, reminiscent of the supposed glory of Blair and Brown as they provide to ‘handle’ the financial system higher than the Tories. There are not any heroes in Westminster.

Rather, Ali went on to say, “The heroes are those who stand with employees on a picket line.” There have been occasions previously decade when you possibly can depend all of the energetic circumstances of commercial motion happening on this nation on one hand. That just isn’t the case as we speak. RMT. CWU. NUJ. Unite. Unison. UCU. NEU. The Royal College of Nursing. Unions throughout the nation – in the event that they’re not already placing – are balloting to affix essentially the most vital wave of UK industrial motion since Thatcher. Speakers on the rally highlighted two native circumstances that have been new to me: Norse refuse employees in East Suffolk, and dock employees in Felixstowe. Many Norse employees within the space have been being pressured to sleep on pals’ sofas because of their persistently low pay – so that they began organising, and now their new Unison branches have over 90% density of participation throughout two depots. In Felixstowe, the UK’s largest container port, dock employees have gone on strike for the primary time in 30 years following an insufficient below-inflation pay supply from their employer. 

There is an extended historical past of profitable working class battle on this nation. That historical past was largely edited out of the schooling delivered to these of us who grew up after Thatcher; however whilst many younger individuals are studying about union motion for the primary time, there are a lot of extra who grew up on tales of the struggles their family members and household pals confronted. “My dad was a Vauxhall manufacturing unit employee in Luton,” Ali tells us. “He recollects fairly vividly how, once they had mass walkouts for higher pay and circumstances, how that had helped him. Him being a part of a union was the explanation I had meals on the desk once I was rising up, and I’ll at all times keep in mind that.”

And we’re going to make use of our pleasure, and our anger, as power to win extra substantial issues – beginning with the wages, rights and dignity we deserve.

Young individuals are rising up right into a motion that was thought of the area of the middle-aged and up once I was a youngster within the New Labour years. In the highly effective phrases of one other speaker, native Acorn activist Denzil Dean, it’s a “thriving, different, joyful motion, able to tackle something that comes our means”. That’s what working individuals have that Tory cronies and the billionaire class don’t: the enjoyment of group, the enjoyment of solidarity, the enjoyment of mutual support within the face of disaster. And we’re going to make use of our pleasure, and our anger, as power to win extra substantial issues – beginning with the wages, rights and dignity we deserve.

“I’m not gonna have it stated, in years come from now, that on this second, I did nothing. And I would like you to say the identical factor.” This was Dempsey’s problem to the viewers. This distinctive second is a problem, to every of us, to face up and be counted. And it is difficult. It won’t be simple to win the change we want from our employers and the federal government. This, as a number of of the audio system stated, is the battle of our lives. But, as Dean rightly stated, “When we put within the work and act collectively, we can win, we do win, and we will win.” 

To shut the rally, Petrie led the group in a refrain of ‘Solidarity Forever’. Its acquainted chorus has been heard on picket traces and protest marches up and down the nation for many years:

‘The union makes us sturdy.’

It’s a tune that, I assume, has by no means handed the brand new PM’s lips. She will study its which means quickly sufficient.

The Enough is Enough marketing campaign is holding its first nationwide day of motion on the first of October. You can see the complete recording of the Norwich rally on the marketing campaign’s Facebook web page.

Featured picture through EIE marketing campaign FB


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