As householders wait for their £324 “cost of living payment”, a meeting of the Cost of Living Crisis Campaign is being held this this Thursday, July 21, evening at 7pm in the Rath Mor centre.
Ellen Moore, one of the organisers, says: “We need to have Cost of Living Crisis Campaign groups in every part of the city – to put pressure on the powers-that-be to provide more help for those on low incomes, to make sure that no one feels alone and to provide information about what is available to help.”
The meeting follows on from the march organized by the NI Committee of the Irish Congress of Trades Unions at the end of June.
Ms Moore points out that, while this march was important to give the campaign a boost, a mass movement will be needed to protect the most vulnerable in the coming months and such events “are no substitute for people organizing themselves in their own communities”.
The Cost of Living Crisis Campaign brings together trade unionists who are fighting for pay rises that will match the rate of inflation and people living on benefits who urgently need to see benefits restored to the levels they were in 2010 when the Conservatives took power.
While many of the worst aspects of the Tory cuts to benefits – like the bedroom tax and benefit cap – do not impact most people here because of Stormont’s package of mitigations, too many of the changes do apply here.
For example, the two-child policy limits benefit payments (and working tax credits) to the first two children in a family and impacts families across the North.
Recently published government statistics revealed that 1.3 million children in the UK are already impacted by this unjust policy which affects more and more families each year.
The group say the meeting on Thursday evening is to organise local action.
And everyone is welcome.
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