Activate: There is an alternative
In her latest column for Activate, Fran highlights three new policy pamphlets by PCS, explaining how they show there is an alternative to scapegoating migrants, attacking pensioners and disabled people, and refusing to tax the rich.
Over the last few months, PCS has produced three new policy pamphlet available for you to pick up:
- On the case for Safe Routes for asylum seekers
- Giving our vision for the Social Security system
- On the need for Tax Justice.
They can be summarised as don’t scapegoat migrants; don’t scapegoat benefit claimants; and tax the rich instead.
This is the message we took to TUC Congress earlier this month, and will be taking to Labour Party conference. This is the message that the Labour government could and should be taking to the country.
These pamphlets have been produced in collaboration with members and activists across the union – drawing on the distinct expertise of those who work in the Home Office, HMRC and DWP, as well as from our disabled members.
You don’t have to pick the pockets of pensioners by cutting winter fuel payments. There are billionaire bosses with far more cash to spare.
You don’t have to attack disabled people’s living standards. There are corporations paying lower taxes rates than their cleaners – and less than companies in every G7 nation.
But perhaps the most painful thing for all of us to see is the debate over asylum and migration – the toxification of that debate by the far-right, Reform, the Tories, and too often by Labour, too.
Trade unions win for working class people when we unite the working class in its full diversity – all of us together.
The billionaires, the corporations, landlords, and media barons – they want us divided: squabbling amongst ourselves, distracted from the reality that they underpaying us, and ripping us off on our bills, our rent, our mortgages.
The far-right sows division that weakens all working class people. It is anti-union and against everything we stand for.
That’s why billionaire Elon Musk is happy to endorse Tommy Robinson.
Musk is a union-busting employer, who spent millions of dollars to stop workers organising a union at his Tesla car plants.
I am proud that our union has a long history of standing up to racism and hate, which does nothing for working class people in Britain.
When the Tory Government tried to introduce its Rwanda scheme, we took them to court and we won – blocking the policy.
And when Keir Starmer makes a speech calling us an ‘Island of Strangers’ we condemned him too.
Reform won’t improve working people’s lives, but they will give you someone to blame.
That’s why this Labour government must implement safe routes, tax the rich, stop cutting benefits for working class people, and redistribute wealth. If they don’t they risk paving the way for a Reform government.