2007 has opened with a rake of price rises for working class people. The average family now faces cost of living increases of €229 a month. Average mortgages have gone up €200, gas bills up €15.50, ESB bills have gone up €8 and VHI has gone up €5.50.
On top of that, the cost of travel has increased across the board – with train fares going up 2.75%, toll charges going up and Luas fares in Dublin increasing dramatically. The bin tax has been hiked up in many Council areas again, as has the TV licence fee. In order just to survive at the same standard of living as last year, the average family will have to pay an extra €2,748 in 2007!
This is a far cry from the prosperous New Year promised by the government with its much trumpeted increases in welfare benefits and allowances and miniscule pay increases under social partnership. In reality, what the government gave with one hand to welfare recipients, has been wiped away by these price increases. The fact that inflation could climb over 5% in 2007 means that these price increases will turn the 4.3% pay increase under “Towards 2016” into a pay cut in reality.
The reason for the price increases is very simple – profiteering. Companies like National Toll Roads already makes a daily pre tax profit amounting to tens of thousands of euros through fleecing drivers who have to use toll bridges. They have increased the tolls simply to ensure an even bigger profit for their company this year.
The increases in ESB and Bord Gais bills are a substantial part of the increased cost of living. While much has been made of the increases in energy prices worldwide, the reality is that world oil prices have dipped slightly recently, yet still workers will be faced with paying an extra cost just to heat their homes. Even more hypocritically, the government has already given away tens of billions of euro worth of gas off the west coast of Ireland for free to multinationals like Shell and Statoil, and recently made an announcement asking for more companies to come and take gas on the same conditions, i.e. for free! Yet the government wants ordinary workers to pay for its giveaway of our natural resources and pro-big business policies.
Clearly, the bosses will do what they can to maximise profits, from hiking up prices to attacking the wages of the workers. The problem is that the trade union leaders haven’t matched the bosses’ determination with a struggle to defend workers’ interests. Instead, they have signed up for a social partnership agreement, which amounts to a pay cut in reality. If workers are even to maintain current standards of living, the straitjacket of social partnership and "Towards 2016" must be rejected. The trade unions should pursue real pay increases for their membership, above and beyond the rate of inflation, instead of allowing price rises to eat away at workers’ standard of living.
