Thread by @MrBenSellers

[thread] This weekend, a series of @pplsassembly #CostOfLivingCrisis demos were held across the UK, with P&O workers - represented by their unions @RMTunion & @nautilusint. I agree strongly with the linking of these two issues - and I want to quickly explain why. 1/10

After the ‘fire & rehire’ scandals of the last few years, P&O was the next logical step, except - as the @IERUK’s Keith Ewing has said - it isn’t #fireandrehire but #fireandreplace. The tactic is borrowed from the outsourcing playbook - but it happened overnight. 2/10

It was significantly more radical & newsworthy because @POferries management decided to ignore employment law & take the hit of possible penalties as part of the price of creating a cheaper, casualised workforce. They had done the maths. 3/10

Of course, what that points to is a massive weakness in employment law / worker’s rights in the UK. The #PandOBetrayal is part of a continuum including fire & rehire & outsourcing / subcontracting practices, all aimed at creating a lower paid workforce with less rights. 4/10

These changes haven’t happened overnight. We’ve now had over 40 years of anti-trade union legislation in this country, starting with Thatcher, but being continued by New Labour & Blair, who once boasted that we had the most restrictive trade union laws in the Western world. 5/10

The reason Blair said that was because he was trying to make the argument for inward investment - the idea being that what might attract big firms to the UK was the assurance that they would be unhindered by trade union organising & bargaining. 6/10

That de-regulation & loss of union power was a terrible thing to boast about, because it has got us to where we are today, with a major company having the confidence to treat their employees as commodities. Those are the roots, both of the P&O scandal & fire & rehire. 7/10

There’s a lot of talk about what drives down wages - and, yes - it is complicated, but the biggest drivers of all are the changes in the economy & the collective power of organised labour: de-regulation, anti-trade union legislation & outsourcing & privatisation. 8/10

And that’s the connection with the #CostOfLivingCrisis. Without all those shifts - away from collective bargaining & union presence towards fragmentation, the free market & the imposition of conditions on workers, we’d be in a far better position to demand better pay. 9/10

When inflation rose, we’d have a chance of pay outstripping it - as it did in the 1970s. Genuine power & the ability to negotiate would be in the hands of the unions & the workers they represented - meaning that remedies to the #CostOfLivingCrisis would be in our hands too. 10/10