People in our communities face an underlying sense of insecurity

I represent South Kirkby and South Elmsall ward on Wakefield District Council. I’m not sure many people will have heard of our pit villages before Chris Bryant’s speech earlier this week but we’ve hit the headlines because Next Plc have a large distribution centre in our area.

The pits closed here in the 1990s. The Thatcher government ripped the heart out of our communities and left families without jobs, livelihoods or hope for the future. It’s often fabled how young men would leave school, go to the pits and have a job for life. Fabled it may be, but no less true. Our villages depended on and revolved around mining.

But that was swept from under us and with no plan for any other industry to take its place.

In recent years, some much needed jobs have been created in factory work and retail. In fact, Hemsworth constituency has the highest number of people employed in retail in the whole of England. And while it may not be underground, there are some similarities to the old way of life – large workplaces where many people from the local area work; limited employment opportunities elsewhere; and everyone knows someone who works there. Generations from the same classrooms progress from local schools to the shop floor.

The jobs created were needed and welcomed but as time has passed, and workplaces have expanded, the problems with them have also become more evident. There is now a population of Polish workers in our area – and they are welcome, we have always been an inclusive community. But this is still an area where incomes are too low, jobs are too few and too insecure and deprivation is too widespread. There is no shortage of local people looking for work. Even without the recent trend for zero-hours contacts, work in the new industries is often for temporary or agency rather than permanent workers – it’s very hard to build a life when there is no sense of stability. For those who don’t want to work a particular shift pattern, let alone anyone who wants the security of full rights at work, there is always the fear that agencies will supply other workers to do the job for lower pay on worse conditions.

The employers have argued with some of the reports that appeared this week, and only they know will know the full details of who they recruit and employ and how.

But I do know that there are plenty of people here looking for jobs, and how both they and working people in this community feel – that too many employers are willing to exploit the vulnerable, including migrant workers, to drive down terms and conditions and wages – I remember Jon Cruddas calling this the ‘race to the bottom’ and thought at the time how right that was.

This doesn’t boil down to whether workers are British, Polish or Martian.

It boils down to the underlying sense of insecurity people in our communities face. Insecurity about jobs, wages and housing that have remained untackled by successive governments. When employers exploit that, they should rightly be confronted and criticised – and unions are going some vital work here. But we also need a government that takes action to make sure that they not able to do it in the first place.  That’s what we need to address to win the next election, I’m glad to see we’ve started doing so.