LABOUR needs to recommit to collective bargaining, independent socialist councillors said today after the release of figures revealing an epidemic of poverty pay in Haringey.

A report by the Living Wage Foundation revealed that nearly a third of the north London borough’s residents are paid below the real living wage rate for London, currently £13.15 an hour.

Independent socialist group leader Lotte Collett said: “Our residents are being let down by 40 years of neoliberalism,” saying that “the transfer of wealth from working people to the already wealthy.”

“There is only so much a local authority can do to raise pay in a borough, although an in-sourcing of many of its contracted-out services would greatly assist,” she said, also urging a return to collective bargaining.

Haringey independent socialist councillors, who resigned from Labour mainly in protest at its Gaza stance, will join other such councillors from around the country at a “No Ceasefire, No Vote” conference in London on March 2, open to other interested activists.