WORKERS are not prepared to see their living standards driven down to shore up profits, trade unionists told a packed Morning Star rally in central London on Wednesday night.

Trade unionists representing rail workers, hospital workers, teachers, barristers and more described erupting industrial militancy in their sectors.

National Education Union president Daniel Kebede said teachers would be balloting for action rather than take an 8 per cent real-terms pay cut, he said.

“I’ve seen poverty rising in classrooms year on year — children coming into school without adequate clothing, without food in their bellies. And three-quarters of kids in poverty have parents in work,” he warned.

Train drivers’ union Aslef leader Mick Whelan said money pumped in during the pandemic had been creamed off in profit by operators who were never asked to pay it back.

Sarah-Jane McDonough, a Euston rep from transport union TSSA, said workers who had “worked throughout the pandemic keeping vital services running are facing unprecedented changes to our industry.

“We had to fight for what we have, it’s not been handed to us on a plate.”

GMB’s Helen O’Connor said the fightback must embrace more than pay, but address the “fundamental” question of public ownership.

“We need to control what we create, whether that’s gas and electric or vital services.

“We might be in different unions or different parties, but we must stick together, work together, fight together or they will crush us!”

And RMT assistant general secretary Eddie Dempsey said workers were realising their own power.

“If the CEOs, the heads of industry, the bankers were taken out of this country by an alien visitation, the sick would be looked after in the hospitals tomorrow. The trains would run. The streets would be swept.

“But if we don’t turn up tomorrow this country stops.”

The meeting heard from Unite’s Ruth Hayes on the campaign to stop plans to axe London bus routes, UCU’s Marian Carty on the Goldsmiths dispute, barrister Russell Fraser on the criminal barristers’ strikes and John Hendy QC on new threats to trade union freedoms.

Summing up, Morning Star editor Ben Chacko said media propaganda trying to divide workers was increasingly falling flat.

Booming corporate profits showed “their gain is our pain,” he said, but the battle lines were drawn and it was getting harder for politicians to hide which side they are on.

The rally can be watched in full at https://www.facebook.com/morningstaronline/videos/815938809819842