The TUC's relations with Labour are not always easy, but we have a shared interest in creating a fairer, more equal Britain that recognises the tough times austerity has created for millions of ordinary families.
Once upon a time maybe, when the Labour Party was more Methodist than Marxist, but those days are long behind us. The TUC hasn't cared about creating a fairer Britain for a long time, whatever fairer means. It's all politics. Positioning. Trying to undermine a democratically elected government reducing a budget deficit caused by fattening the wallets of the TUC.
If our analysis of the 2008 crash recognises that a bubble delivering fake prosperity burst, then we know that money will be tight, even after reversing self-defeating austerity. But that is not an argument for ministers to be timid. On the contrary, they will need to be more radical in delivering structural change and shaking up the economy, redefining the role of state and markets. For example, rather than being prepared in perpetuity to use tax credits to subsidise insecure and low-paid work, we need action to create good, sustainable jobs, spread the living wage and create modern wages councils to set fair rates in industries that can easily afford to better the minimum wage.
Yep, to create good, sustainable jobs, you need to increase the minimum wage even more. Never mind that 1 million youngsters are struggling to find good, sustainable work because a minimum wage prices inexperienced, unskilled labour out of the market. Why do you think not even the TUC advocates equalising the minimum wage across all age bands? It would be employment suicide. If you want to avoid the rigmarole caused by tax credits then abolish them. Just take those on minimum wage out of taxation altogether. It is a scandal that they pay it anyway. She makes a fair point on rates though: how she squares it with her version of perpetually increased state spending is a question for another day.
A broken banking system needs rebuilding – with regional banks and both a green and a state investment bank. Active industrial policy with a strong regional dimension already has wide support among employers and unions. The need to invest in a major programme of social and affordable housing can kickstart growth and meet huge social need. Public ownership of railways will be cheaper than the huge corporate welfare bill paid to private operators at the moment.
What is this fetish with regional banks? How would more regional banks have prevented the crash. I don't have British figures but in the US, since 2008, 465 banks have been closed. Creative destruction, purging bad money out of the system. A problem that has been brewing since Jimmy Carter's Community & Reinvestment Act will not be solved in 4 years, but the banking system is getting cleaner. To argue for the public ownership of rails after criticising a system of banking that is partially state owned is akin to arguing against gun control by shooting your opponents. National Rail is a nationalised industry in all but name anyway.
The rest of the article continues in much the same vein. Lots of guff about how unions can play a stronger role in the modern economy. That they can, but with the public sector set to shrink even further, and a paucity of representation in the private sector, I suspect the siren voices of the Union movement will get quieter as the years progress.
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