Armies march on their stomachs yet tearful low-paid women cooking and serving meals in
Britain’s defence bases, including the SAS HQ in Herefordshire, complain a company is exploiting the virus to slash wages.
Who Dares Cuts is a Fat Cat motto warning bad bosses and a compliant Conservative Government that levelling down will produce a more deeply divided Britain from this health and economic crisis.
Contractor ESS, part of the giant Compass group, has form.
I revealed three years ago how it tried to steal a fortnight’s money from workers in Gosport.
Trade union Unite eventually won an Employment Tribunal battle.
The firm is, I’m told, allegedly at it again with union officials claiming workers are put under pressure to sign away income or risk an exit.
Ministry of Defence contracts were not, as far as I’m aware, reduced because of the pandemic so why should workers suffer?
Prime Minister Boris Johnson didn’t lift a finger against a British Airways betraying a loyal workforce, axing 10,000 and ordering survivors to reapply for jobs on inferior terms.
Defence Secretary Ben Wallace hasn’t made a peep about ESS, presuming he knows what’s going on in military bases.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak, considering minimum wage, public sector pay and social security freezes, is allowing the heaviest burden to fall on the weakest as corporations continue to award Fat Cat salaries and gift juicy dividends.
Mass unemployment and business closures are prices the PM and Chancellor are prepared to let people pay as they face a virus which won’t disappear with the job furlough scheme on Halloween.
Labour’s Shadow Chancellor Anneliese Dodds is more coherent financially and intellectually than Mr Rishi who is straining to cut, cut, cut. She rightly sees the collapse of the private sector requires the public to spend, spend, spend.
Protecting people in work and saving jobs deserve to be an economic priority to get the country through this emergency which is manifestly very far from over.
Keir Starmer talks about restoring Labour as the patriotic party acting in the national interest.
Are we all in this together? Women who serve their country on defence bases, women proud of what they do, know the answer is a resounding “No” under the Tories.
