So austerity is working, it is doing what it was intended to do, reduce the UK to a sweatshop economy. The corporate boardrooms are rubbing its hands with greedy glee. According to a report just recently published by the TUC, between 2007 and 2015, in the UK, real wages fell by 10.4%. A massive bonus to directors and shareholders. hooray for austerity.
This decline in real wages puts the UK at the bottom of the league of OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operaration and Development) as far as I am aware there are 29 countries across the globe who are members of this organisation. The report also found that during the same period, real wages grew by varying amounts through the OECD, in Poland real wages increased by 23%, in Germany 14%, France 11%, and on average, across the whole of the OECD, real wages increased by 6.7%.
This decline in real wages puts the UK at the bottom of the league of OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operaration and Development) as far as I am aware there are 29 countries across the globe who are members of this organisation. The report also found that during the same period, real wages grew by varying amounts through the OECD, in Poland real wages increased by 23%, in Germany 14%, France 11%, and on average, across the whole of the OECD, real wages increased by 6.7%.
We here in the UK, thanks to “austerity”, have suffered the largest fall in real wages of any advanced country other than Greece. In fact in the OECD, Greece, Portugal and the UK were the only three countries where real wages fell. Yet to listen to the bullshit spewing from the mouths of government ministers, you would think that we lived in Utopia.
Of course we would be naive if we thought that this trend was likely to change any day soon. It is all going in the right direction, the falling pound, combined with cheaper labour, means we can compete with the other sweatshops of the world, enhancing the profits of the corporate bodies. Across the boardrooms of the UK they are working hard at persuading the powers that be to keeping this wonderful austerity plan going.
Of course we would be naive if we thought that this trend was likely to change any day soon. It is all going in the right direction, the falling pound, combined with cheaper labour, means we can compete with the other sweatshops of the world, enhancing the profits of the corporate bodies. Across the boardrooms of the UK they are working hard at persuading the powers that be to keeping this wonderful austerity plan going.
We the British public paid dearly to help the bankers out of their greed fest, no doubt our lords and masters will be planning for us to help UK industry and services out of any Brexit problems that might arise. Oh when will we ever learn?
Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk
