THE cost-of-living crisis continues to have a devastating impact on too many working families. Rising prices of everyday essentials mean that many are finding it impossible to survive. Usdaw’s survey of thousands of low-paid mainly key workers demonstrates the dire situation.

Nearly a third are struggling to pay gas and electricity bills every single month; over 60 per cent have relied on unsecured borrowing in the past year to pay bills, and around seven in 10 report that financial worries are impacting their mental health. While everyone is being impacted by the crisis, it is clearly having the greatest toll on those who can least afford it. 

As a movement we need to be clear that the roots of this crisis are deeper than the Tories’ mismanagement of our economy or the global factors they like to blame. At the heart of the cost-of-living crisis is our weak employment rights framework, which robs workers of financial security or certainty and leaves them constantly vulnerable to economic headwinds and changes of circumstance.