26 June 2022, King’s Cross Station, London, United Kingdom
There are demonstrations, spontaneous demonstrations of rallies like this one in Scotland, all over England, in Wales, not just for railway workers, but for the very idea that we can organise ourselves and fight back against this suppression of wages, against the stripping out of contracts of employment in terms and conditions, about the robbery of our pension funds, and against the division that this Tory party and the bosses in this country are trying to promote in our society.
And what do they say to us in these interviews? They say, how can your cleaners get a pay rise? Why do they deserve a pay rise? Well what do they think it's going to happen if our people don't get a pay rise? Is it going to go to these mighty workers? Is it going to be transferred somehow from one set of workers to another? Well, I'll tell you what the answer is. The answer is a redistribution of wealth in this country. That's what we need
[applause]
Prices are rampant. Inflation is rampant. But what else is rampant? Profit has never been higher. We've never had so many billionaires in this society. The super rich are getting richer and richer year after year. But workers are getting poorer year on year. And what are we saying? We refuse to be poor anymore!@
They want to make us redundant whenever it's convenient for them. They want to strip out our terms and conditions, just like at P & O. They're saying to us ,either accept this new contract or go out the door. We're not having it. We negotiated those contracts, those terms and conditions, and we are going to defend them every step of the way.
And they say, we can't afford to give you a pay rise. I've never heard such a load of nonsense in all my life. These men and women from Mighty, we've taken Mighty on at St #. We've taken 'em on in Kings Cross, we'll take them on in Paddington and we'll take them on anywhere when they come onto the railway. Cause this is the method of super exploitation. Outsourcing is the biggest evil in the workplace in this country.
All of these men and women working for Mighty and all these other outsourced companies are being ripped off and virtually enslaved by these companies. We're not going to have it any longer. You don't have to be a social scientist to work out who's getting these poor contracts, the black people, the migrant people, the people from minorities, are suffering disproportionately. And we got to stand up and say no to that structural racism.
Every worker, every worker in the NHS, in the public services, in education, in care, in transport, should be on a single contract of employment. Common terms and conditions, common agreements on holidays, sick pay and pension. That's what we used to have and that's what we want back. That's modernization.
All of you have the power, a wheel doesn't turn, a light doesn't go on, without us. We create all of the wealth in this society, all of it.
It's our labour that delivers the services, makes the goods, distributes them, and gets them to the people. All we want is our fair share of that. The rich, the powerful have got to realise that we need redistribution. We need progressive taxation. We need minimum standards at work. We need a Bill of Rights for workers. That's what we need. So they can't fire and rehire. And I've got a message to people in our movement. Keir Starmer and others. They're hesitating. I don't know why they're hesitating. If he could draw a crowd like this with what he says he'd be doing well.
But I want him to be the prime minister. That's what we've got. He must win. But we've got to push him and persuade him to get into a position where he is in the front rank, front rank with you, all of you, helping us, assisting with us, identifying with our causes, identifying with equality in the workplace, identifying with unity.
And we cannot be divided. Do not fall for the tricks of the media trying to play a nurse against a railway worker, trying to play a cleaner off against a caterer. It's absolute nonsense. We are a rainbow. We come from all over the world and everybody's welcome in this country who wants to earn their living. Nobody is illegal.