By Cllr Rachel Burgess
Hundreds of teachers in Wokingham walked out on strike last Wednesday, their passions raised by poor pay and excessive workloads that have caused a recruitment and retention crisis in our schools.
Our teachers have some of the longest working hours in the world and for the first time in years they have decided that enough is enough. It was stunning to see so many gathered at a rally in Wokingham’s market place calling for a fair pay settlement, fully funded, to pay teachers properly for the essential work they do for our children.
Education is just one example in a wave of industrial disputes up and down the country, involving workers spanning all sectors, and including a whole generation of people who have never been out on strike before.
Instead of engaging with unions, the government is instead introducing a draconian minimum service bill which gives employers new powers curtailing the right to strike, with no protection from unfair dismissal. As Keir Starmer said last week when speaking about the nurses strikes, the government appears to have gone from clapping the nurses to sacking them.
Instead of negotiating, the Conservatives seem intent on prolonging the agony. This is just one aspect of policy amongst a whole litany of issues the Conservatives refuse to properly face up to – and soon they are going to run out of sticking plasters.
After Truss’s disastrous mini budget and years of economic stagnation, we learned last week that under the Conservatives the UK is the only G7 nation expected to have negative growth this year.
And still the situation for ordinary people gets worse.
With energy prices set to rise yet again in April as the government scales back its support for fuel bills, water bills are set to rise by 7.5%, the biggest rise for two decades.
There is a whole swathe of homeowners who are yet to be hit by the rapid rises in mortgage rates as their mortgages deals come to an end this year.
Many people in Wokingham do not have enough money to deal with these soaring bills, rents and mortgage payments. For many, their wages are too low and the cost of living too high for even the basic necessities.
Talking to Citizens Advice Wokingham as part of my work improving the way council debts are collected, I know that just one missed bill payment can set off a chain reaction that can end up with the bailiffs knocking at the door.
As bills soar for ordinary people, we saw again this week the jaw-dropping profits being made by oil and gas giants. Instead of a proper windfall tax on these companies the Conservatives look the other way.
And Council budgets have no magic buffer against the massive rise in prices. Councillors meet later this month to agree a budget for the coming year and I know how tirelessly Council officers have worked to balance the books in extremely challenging circumstances, and after 12 years of austerity and successive inadequate funding settlements.
It saddens me greatly that the Council have had to resort to a crowdfunding campaign to help people struggling this winter, such is the inadequacy of government funding. The sixth biggest economy in the world and our councils are resorting to crowdfunding for ordinary people who cannot afford to feed their families.
I talk to people on the doorstep every week.
Do people in Wokingham think they are better off under the Conservatives? Increasingly the answer is no.
Instead of sticking plasters we need to tackle the cost of living crisis, boost the economy and raise living standards.
We need more police, more doctors and nurses and proper pay negotiations for our essential workers.
I am not in the habit of taking political suggestions from millionaire Conservative-voting rock stars. But I can only live in hope that the government take Sir Rod Stewart’s advice, as he said last week “the government should stand down now and give the Labour Party a go”.
It cannot come soon enough.
Cllr Rachel Burgess is the leader of the Labour group on Wokingham Borough Council and ward member for Norreys
