Our real pay has been slashed in recent years and our pension contributions jacked up. We need a decent pay rise! Yet the current NEC, in office for many years, has never had a serious programme for the defence of living standards and for a return to national pay bargaining and equality in pay rates. The pay situation is worse than it has ever been.

In contrast we have argued for national pay for years; arguing for greater use of equal pay law and other equality legislation to equalise pay between bargaining units and between men and women, white and non white members; for departmental pay as a stepping stone towards national pay (moving from 20+ departmental pay bargaining units to one national unit is an easier step than jumping from the current 100+ bargaining units to one national bargaining unit); to advertise to members, repeatedly and in the most imaginative ways possible, the differences in pay between people doing work of equal value to make them aware of the great disparities in pay and to get into members heads the idea of the “going” rate for each grade; if you are not paid this rate then you are being underpaid.

As the above shows there is a sharp contrast between the Independent Left and the current leadership on pay; if you want a union that fights on pay then we think you have to vote for us.