Yesterday (Thursday 1st June) the TUC launched its general election campaign calling on all parties to “give Britain a pay rise”. Frances O’Grady, TUC General Secretary was joined by Clare Williams, Regional Secretary in the South of the Region to highlight the impact of the Government’s policies of Austerity.
As the TUC analysis shows, workers in the North East are £400 a year worse off in real terms and wages in the region are 2% lower on average than they were in 2008. The TUC are also saying that things could get worse, with the bank of England warning that real earnings will fall for the rest of 2017.
The rise in zero hours contracts is helping to drive the fall in living standards and two out of 3 jobs created in the North East since 2011 have been in insecure work. The TUC estimates that 124,000 people now work in insecure jobs in the North East which represents 1 in 9 workers in the region.
Speaking on the tour Clare Williams said “this region badly needs a pay rise, it’s disgraceful that hard working people are faced with being £400 worse off than before the financial crash and there must be an acknowledgement of the damage this government’s pay cap is having in the public sector. This region has the highest figures of in work poverty particularly in the South of the region and hard working public servants such as nurses should not have to resort to use food banks to get by.”