More than 600 Labour councillors including one from Ealing have signed an open letter supporting rail, postal, dock and other industry workers across the UK who are on picket lines.
In the letter, the signatories showed their support to workers on conditions of employment, rates of pay and encouraged more people to join a trade union.
The letter, which was circulated to Labour councillors earlier this month, currently has only one Ealing Labour Councillor signing it – Councillor Dee Martin.
Councillor Martin, who has represented Northolt West End since 2010 told EALING.NEWS that signing the letter is important: “Some of my friends are union stewards and I have supported them in the past and continue to do so.”
Nearby council, Brent, saw 20 of its Labour councillors including its leader Councillor Muhammed Butt sign the letter which was also organised by Councillor Jumbo Chan who represents Harlesden & Kensal Green in Brent.
“Millions of people in Britain today are struggling to make ends meet, worrying about day-to-day living. Yet, as we have more billionaires than ever, and the profits and dividend payouts of Britain’s biggest companies soar, the mass of ordinary working people have been told to endure precarity and insecurity. This obscene situation, we are told, is the natural order of things and that we must simply accept it for the good of the nation.
The recent activities of the RMT and other trade unions are a welcome, important rejection of this dismal absurdity. Their heroism offers to the public the very real hope of ordinary working people coming together to take control and exercise some semblance of power over their own lives.
Naturally, a tsunami of lies has been deployed to keep workers in their place, including that of stagnating wages fuelling inflation rather than soaring profits. But, as Mick Lynch and Eddie Dempsey from the RMT have so neatly captured, what Britain is suffering from is not so much a cost-of-living crisis as a low-wage crisis.
We are proud to witness this emerging renaissance of trade unionism, and we offer to the RMT, the CWU, Unite and many other trade unions taking action our full solidarity and support, on the picket line and elsewhere. More importantly, we urge all ordinary working people to take control of their destinies, and to join a trade union today.”
According to a source, other councillors could be adding their name to the letter in the coming days as they are back or getting back from their summer break.
