Unite's Pat Rafferty warns inequality is approaching Victorian levels

In his New Year message to members, Rafferty called for an economy that works for people.

He said that for too long, people in Scotland had been the victims of a “rigged vampire economy” where the needs of the majority had been sacrificed “to satisfy unending corporate greed”.

“Just before Christmas, we learned from the Institute of Fiscal Studies that workers have now gone for more than a decade without any real growth in their earnings – it’s probably the longest wage squeeze we’ve seen for a century,” he said.

“It is a scandal that there are people in Scotland who are working for their poverty. In 2016, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that there are 3.8 million workers in the UK who are in a household in poverty – up by around a million since 2004/05.

“In-work poverty is more common for younger workers, self-employed workers and part-time employees.

“Meanwhile, fat-cat earnings show no sign of stopping. FTSE 100 companies gave their chief executives an aggregate six per cent pay rise in 2016, according to the High Pay Centre. The average package was worth £5.6 million.

“The rich are getting richer and workers are getting poorer – and if things don’t change we will soon reach levels of inequality in this country that we haven’t seen since the Victorian era.”

Rafferty said he was quite clear where the blame lay – describing workers being “hobbled and chained” by anti-trade union laws that have given companies “too much power and unbalanced our economy”.

“Employers now think they can get away with having workers on zero-hour contracts, pretending they’re self-employed when they’re really employees, and paying wages that keep them and their families in poverty,” he said.

“Our message to workers is that by joining a trade union we can work together to protect jobs, wages and basic rights, and to bring dignity and fairness to the workplace.”

The union boss took time to reflect on what he called Unite’s “big successes” of the past year. He said it was able to help thousands of workers at Sports Direct’s warehouse at Shirebrook in Derbyshire receive an estimated £1m in back pay following the company’s non-payment of the minimum wage.

“In 2017, with the support of workers, we will look to build on those successes and deliver a better future for all of us,” he said.

“And government needs to help. It needs to scrap anti-worker trade union laws. It needs to give workers a long-overdue pay rise through a boost to the national minimum wage. It needs to make sure that companies that blacklist workers are not awarded public contracts, and that those companies who make profits from the public purse properly reward their workers. And it needs to make sure that the bargaining rights of workers are strengthened and respected. That’s as true for our government in Holyrood as it is for our government in Westminster.”

Rafferty said that next year the government had to abandon its “failed policy” of austerity. He said it had become clearer and clearer that the financial crash caused by “casino bankers” in 2008 had been used as an excuse to “shred the public services that we all rely on”.

“Our councils in Scotland have been cut to the bone, losing more than a billion pounds in the last five years. Our NHS boards across Scotland are facing massive cash shortfalls,” he said.

“We can’t go on like this. Scotland as a country is around three times richer than it was in 1960. There is no shortage of money – it’s just being hoarded away for the benefit of a few, while society as a whole is left to scrabble around for scraps.

“The local government elections this year should be an opportunity to revitalise local democracy and create strong, sustainable public services for the benefit of all.”

“With a strong voice for workers, we can make 2017 an historic turning point for Scotland, when we start to build an economy for all. Unite will be working hard to make that a reality.”