Million workers pay price of City failure

More than a million workers have lost their jobs since the beginning of the recession, forcing many to take a huge pay cut in order to land a new job, economists have revealed.

A report released by the Charted Institute of Personnel Development (CIPD) paints a devastating picture for working people who are continuing to suffer job losses, pay cuts and huge drops in living standards during the recession.

It revealed that 1.3 million people have been made redundant during the “official” recession – double the fall in employment and equivalent to 4.4 per cent of those in work before the downturn.

And two-thirds of those who succeeded in finding new work were forced to take a 28 per cent pay cut.

Between April 2008 and November 2009 there were 6.2 million fresh claims for jobseeker’s allowance – an astonishing 7.5 times higher than the official unemployment claimant count, according to the CIPD.

Communist Party of Britain general secretary Rob Griffiths said the government had “utterly failed to protect workers,” preferring to allow them to be “thrown to the wolves” of unemployment and poverty.

Mr Griffiths insisted that, if the government wanted to successfully ease the pain of the recession for workers, it must “direct the activities of big business and the movement of capital.

“As in every capitalist recession, many viable enterprises have been shut down in order to maximise profitability,” he said.

“Many employers have taken advantage of the recession to intensify or to force fewer workers to work even harder.”

The CIPD study is released on Monday, the day that Chancellor Alistair Darling’s promise of employment, training or work experience for every young person out of work for six months goes live.

In his pre-Budget report, Mr Darling called for a 1 per cent pay cap for the public sector.

But speaking to the Sunday Times, he threatened to bring a swooping axe down on all public-sector workers, promising pay cuts.

Mr Darling tried to justify the decision, quoting figures that private-sector workers had suffered an average 0.1 per cent pay cut across the board.

Responding to the Chancellor, a public-sector union Unison spokeswoman accused him of using the recession to divide working people.

“What is the point in pitting public-sector workers against private-sector workers in a race to the bottom?” she questioned.

“They are using the public sector as a smokescreen when it is big City bankers who have dragged this country into recession.”

The spokeswoman also said that the union expected the government to honour the three-year pay deal in the NHS and called for a strong focus on getting the country out of recession.

“We need to look how we get this country out of recession and that is not by depressing wages and the economy still further.

“When you cut people’s wages you cut their purchasing power – this has a knock-on effect.”

Taken from Morning Star

Lone parents told to work – or face fine

Hard-hearted Welfare Reform Minister Jim Knight has steamrollered ahead with plans to fine lone parents who refuse “work-related activity.”

Despite a revolt by 22 Labour MPs, Mr Knight pushed through a harsh proposal to curb benefit payments to single parents whose youngest child is three years old or over.

Labour MP John Grogan attacked the tough new rule as “mean-spirited” as he joined rebels backing a Lords amendment to the bitterly controversial Welfare Reform Bill.

Mr Grogan urged the minister to relent “even at this late stage and in the spirit of Christmas, which is soon to be upon us.”

Wide-ranging workfare-style measures and benefit cuts proposed in the Bill are now certain to pass into law.

Tuesday night’s backbench revolt was a last stand by Labour opponents in the final stages of the Bill, but the government won the vote by 286 votes to 236.

Rebels backed an amendment to raise from three to five the age that children must reach before their parents are liable to benefit sanctions for failing to undertake work-related activity.

Labour MP Diane Abbott remarked acidly that ministers should be grateful that “nowadays the proceedings of the House of Commons are not properly reported.”

She added: “If ordinary Labour members and supporters could hear Labour ministers talking about imposing financial sanctions on women with three-year-old children to get them into notional jobs in the middle of a very real recession, they would be shocked and unhappy.”

Mr Knight insisted that parents would not be required to take up actual employment until their youngest child was aged seven.

Those with children over three years old would be required to undertake activities such as training and help with literacy and numeracy.

Taken from Morning Star