Wales TUC: Time for Real Action on Energy Bills

“It is time to get real. Today’s announcement must be a wake-up call for our politicians who seem to be asleep at the wheel.

No more half-measures and token gestures. We are facing a catastrophic winter where hundreds of thousands of workers in Wales are simply not going to be able to heat their homes and pay their bills.  

The UK Government must cancel the catastrophic rise to energy bills this autumn and bring energy retail companies into public ownership. We’re demanding that the national minimum wage be raised to £15 per hour and we need to bring forward increases to universal credit.

It’s time for companies in the private sector – who were bailed out during Covid – to acknowledge their social responsibilities and put their workers before their profit margins for once. And we need a proper funding settlement for Wales that reflects the unprecedented challenges facing the public sector.

Today we have postal workers out on strike and fighting for a fair deal. In the coming weeks we’ll see railway workers, journalists, engineers, call centre workers and barristers all declaring that enough is enough and striking to protect their livelihoods. This is the tip of the iceberg. Workers are simply not prepared to meekly accept an economy where the CEOs of FTSE 100 companies saw an average pay rise of 39% last year while the average worker is still worse off than they were in 2008.

If politicians and bosses won’t respond to the cost of living crisis in front of them then they shouldn’t be surprised when workers take action.”