If Labour doesn’t end austerity it will face resistance – Fran Heathcote

“If Labour doesn’t deliver on key issues like pay restoration, trade union rights and funding public services, then there are warning signs for them.”

By Fran Heathcote, PCS union

There’s been a lot of talk in recent weeks about Labour’s inheritance.

No one disputes the facts: The largest falling in living standards since the Second World War, a stagnant economy, the housing crisis, the record NHS waiting lists, and  the real crises across many public services – from the courts to social care; from prison overcrowding to teacher recruitment.

The Tories have left the country in a terrible state – and that’s why voters turfed them out in July.

But we should remember what Labour Cabinet Minister Tony Benn said: “The crisis is the occasion for fundamental change, not the excuse for postponing it.”

Let me put that a bit more plainly: if you continue with failed policies, you will fail.

And the results are clear: austerity failed on every metric.

Fourteen years ago, George Osborne told us the state was too big, and that a sharp dose of austerity, cutting the public sector down to size, would allow the private sector to blossom.

He said the public sector was “crowding out private endeavour”

Well since George Osborne slashed inheritance tax, cut corporation tax, attacked social security, cut public services, froze public sector pay – how did things go?

We’ve had low growth, low productivity growth, falling living standards, rising levels of homelessness and rising levels of poverty and destitution

It wasn’t “private endeavour” that filled the void, it was food banks.

This is not complicated. If workers have less money in their pockets, they have less to spend in the economy.

That is why the UK economy is fundamentally weak, and it won’t strengthen until the incomes of the average worker are boosted.

Earlier this month at the TUC, every trade union endorsed the call for pay restoration – that’s not just in the interests of our members, or even just public services, but of the economy too.

This Labour government has said it’s number one mission is the highest sustained growth in the G7.

That won’t be achieved unless the incomes of workers are boosted. A strong economy requires consumers with disposable income – not people struggling to make ends meet.

So while above-inflation pay offers this year are welcome, they do not go far enough.

And people are anxious, because Keir Starmer came to the TUC and said “with tough decisions on the horizon – pay will inevitably be shaped by that”, and Rachel Reeves is promising “tough decisions”.

It sounds like we should be bracing ourselves for more of the failed dogma of the past: public sector pay restraint, cuts to public services and attacks on social security.

The cut already to Winter Fuel Payments is a sign that rather than tax the rich, the choice will be made to hit people on low and middle incomes.

But while those anxieties are real, there are also reasons for hope.

Labour’s New Deal for Working People represents a significant step forward.

The banning of zero hours contracts, the ending of fire and rehire, and day one rights at work are all important.

It may not go as far as many of us would want, but it is our job to demand more and secure more for the workers we represent.

We should welcome the tearing up of the Minimum Service Levels that the last government brought in, and the move to end the ballot thresholds and other measures in the 2016 Trade Union Act.

We know that stronger trade union rights means workers can win a fairer share of the pie – and that’s good for them, and good for the economy.

But if Labour doesn’t deliver on key issues: like pay restoration, trade union rights and funding public services, then there are warning signs for them.

Firstly they will face resistance from a trade union movement that overcame huge hurdles to mobilise action on a scale not seen for years against the last government. Then there are electoral threats from the left of Labour too – voters have elected left Independents and Greens in greater numbers than ever before. But perhaps most worryingly of all, there is a growing threat from the far right, waiting to fill the void if Labour fails.

So we had better hope they do, and more than hope, we need to organise to make sure they are forced to deliver.

Our role is not to stand on the sidelines and carp, but to organise to ensure this Labour government does deliver for the people we represent.

Because if they don’t, what comes next could be much worse. PCS is a non-affiliated union, but I’m coming to Labour conference to ensure that message is heard.

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