Protest action of the “Don’t Pay” campaign in London
Photo Credit: IMAGO/ZUMA Wire
Energy bills were on fire in the UK on October 1st. Around 30 protesters gathered in the pedestrian zone in Catford, a district in south London; they chorused: »Can’t pay, won’t pay!« – We can’t pay and we won’t pay. To demonstrate that this is not an empty threat, they lit a fire in a small metal stand and then threw their electricity and gas bills into the flames. The wind was strong that Saturday – to protect the fire, a man put up a sign that read ‘Don’t Pay. Together we strike, together we win.«
Around 30 such protests took place across the country on Saturday. The Don’t Pay UK campaign aims to mobilize a million supporters to stop paying energy bills in protest at the exorbitant cost of electricity and gas. Almost 200,000 Britons have already joined the initiative. It is one of the most prominent campaigns against the UK’s cost of living crisis – but far from the only one.
Above all, the labor movement is on the offensive. The largest wave of strikes in decades began in early summer and has continued unabated ever since. In countless sectors, people have walked off the job in recent months to fight for decent wage increases amid rampant inflation. The transport union RMT, for example, has shut down the nationwide rail network for seven days since June; around 40,000 trade unionists took part in the walkouts. Almost 2,000 dockers at Felixstowe, the UK’s largest container port, through which half of all goods enter the country, went on strike for a week in August. It was the first strike there in 30 years. At the end of September, the Liverpool dockers did the same, they just ended a two-week strike – and immediately announced the next one for mid-October.
Royal Mail’s 100,000 postal workers have also gone on strike for the first time in 13 years. In addition, there are strikes by garbage workers, university lecturers, defense lawyers and call center employees. Midwives, civil servants, nurses and firefighters could also soon join the growing movement: their unions have already launched strike votes.
Furthermore, workers and social movements are increasingly coordinating to achieve greater clout. To this end, the campaign “Enough is Enough” (»Enough is enough«) was founded in August. The initiators include a number of unions, several campaigns and a number of left-wing Labor MPs. Among other things, they are calling for a cap on energy prices, decent housing for all and higher taxes on the rich.
They have since held rallies across the country, from Bristol to Glasgow. There was a lot going on everywhere. Saturday was the first day of action that “Enough is Enough” declared – it was the largest coordinated protest in Britain for many years. People took to the streets in dozens of cities, and in London, several thousand people gathered for a demonstration outside King’s Cross station. At the same time, train traffic came to a standstill again: the RMT went on strike again, as did the postal workers from the CWU union. A total of around 200,000 trade unionists went on strike that day. It will continue next Saturday, then the next strike by the railway workers from the RMT will follow, and the train drivers will also be on strike on Wednesday.
The “Don’t Pay” campaign also took part in the day of action on October 1st – on this very day energy bills were suddenly increased from an average of £1971 a year to £2500. Beth Williams, who helped organize the Catford protest, is feeling a determination not seen in Britain for a long time. “It feels like a turning point,” said the 32-year-old.
Williams is a secondary school teacher. In the past few years, she had to experience that she could not afford to pay as much as she could with her wages. Add to that this year exorbitant inflation and then sky-high electricity and gas bills – it’s just too much. She has already stopped buying certain products. “Besides, if I still had to pay the energy bill, I wouldn’t be able to go to visit my family in Manchester.” She announced that she would stop paying when her campaign reached a million people.
