BLOG: The fabric is unravelling – and this is why.
Corinna Edwards-Colledge, Joint Branch Secretary, Brighton & Hove UNISON
20/11/2023
As local government workers know better than anyone, public services do not stand alone but exist as part of an ecosystem – a complex network that relies on the strength of each thread to help hold the whole together.
Now that network, that fabric of support is unravelling. For decades public service workers have tried to hold that safety net together through sheer will and dedication – but they are burning out, they are getting ill, they are reluctantly leaving the sector as a last-ditch attempt to make their lives liveable again.
If we are, as workers and citizens, going to turn this around we need to understand both how we got here, and what we can do about it. We can all quote 13 years of lethal austerity policies (estimated to have caused the premature deaths of 300,000 people) and catastrophic underinvestment in public services (with local government arguably the biggest victim) but the truth is deeper and more insidious.
I was born in Manchester in 1971. There’s a consensus in much popular debate that those times were dark and impoverished, but this narrative is part of a mass gaslight that hides the real story. Like a magician waving one hand to stop you looking at the one that is putting the rabbit in the hat; telling us we’ve never had it so good because we have consumerist trappings like smartphones, hi-tech TV’s and foreign holidays; doesn’t make up for the real, profound losses, inequalities and wealth hording that have been snuck in through the back door. Here’s just a few:
In 1975 there were 6.5m social housing units in the country, for a population of 56m. Now there are less than 2 million units for a population of 68m. That means that in my lifetime social housing provision has dropped from one council house per 8 people in the country, to one council house to every 34 people in the country.
Since 1978 the pay of corporate CEOs has rocketed by 1460% with the average CEO in the US now being paid around 400 times more than the lowest paid worker in the organisation and in the UK around 118 times the median full-time workers salary. In the same period the pay of ordinary workers has effectively declined.
From 1970 to 2018 the share of income going to middle class households fell from 62% to 43% while the share of wealth going to upper income households rose from 29% to 48%. At the same time wealth share of lower-income households has been on a steady decline.
The wealth of the top 1% in the UK doubled between 1984 and 2013, with the richest then again doubling their wealth during the Covid pandemic.
An Oxfam, Stockholm Environment Institute and Guardian investigation has just uncovered that the world’s richest 1% is responsible for more emissions than the poorest 66% with just 12 billionaires’ emissions equal to those of 2.1m homes.
So what does all this tell us? It tells us that we, public sector workers, have been mopping up the misery and damage caused by a country that has for decades been in the throes of a hostile corporate takeover of public resources and infrastructure. Councils that used to make a healthy income from social housing are now paying billions to private landlords through housing benefit. Resources that used to be owned by the nation have been sold out to the highest bidders who have prioritised shareholder dividends over public responsibility and safety. Local authorities up and down the country are going bust despite the fact that private developers are getting rich quick off building unsustainable and unaffordable housing within their administrative boundaries. I would suggest it’s not hyperbole to suggest that our, and our children’s futures are being devoured by a privileged few who swarm over our public assets like locusts, consuming profit opportunities before moving on to the next source of enrichment.
So what do we do? Has the fabric already unravelled beyond repair, or is there hope? I don’t know the answer, but there are some things we can all do:
1. JOIN A UNION – if you aren’t in one already join now. 8 times more people are a member of a union than a political party in this country. The more people are unionised the greater the voice of ordinary workers. The higher trade union membership, the higher wages go. It’s that simple.
2. FIGHT FOR CHANGE TO OUR ELECTORAL SYSTEM – read up on Proportional Representation. First Past the Post has consistently delivered governments to the right of public opinion and effectively silences the voices of millions leading to a growing sense of political apathy.
3. RENTERS – JOIN ACORN: Acorn the Renter’s Union is bringing together renters and legal expertise to stand up for renters’ rights and lobby for meaningful change to the private rental sector.
4. WATCH PUSH THE FILM – to get a real insight into the shocking truth behind the global housing crisis and what can be done about it.
5. FOR HOPE – READ: Rutger Bregman’s life-changing book, Humankind, a well-researched and compelling account that argues that humanity is ultimately collaborative and compassionate and why it suits structures of power to have us believe otherwise. If we believe in ourselves and our agency, we are much more likely to fight for our rights.
The time to fight for public services and public service jobs is NOW. We must stand together and unite our voices to ensure that whoever is in government after the elections next year hears our demands: immediate re-investment in public services; a comprehensive workers’ rights charter; the end of right to buy and investment in social housing; and the bringing back of our shared public utilities and infrastructure into public ownership.
Perhaps then, we can fight back against the country’s steady descent into mass poverty, and not only patch and repair the fabric of our public services; but weave a new one that protects everyone and enables us to truly thrive.
*the opinions expressed in this blog are entirely my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of UNISON or the city council.