Solidarity
Pret A Manger has announced it will pay up to £14.10 per hour, the advertisement read. A Junior Doctor makes just £14.09. Thanks to this Government you can make more serving coffee than saving patients. This week Junior Doctors will take strike action so they are paid what they are worth.
These words took up the majority of a full page Guardian advertisement taken by the British Medical Association on the 14th March 2023. Amidst the wave of strikes taking place throughout the NHS they proudly shared this statement on their twitter feed.
The message was clear: doctors are worth more than baristas.
I recalled a similar outrage when striking McDonalds based in London were asking for £15 per hour.
Friends and acquaintances I believed to be of a similar social and political stance to me took to twitter to discuss what a ridiculous request that was. Maybe I should pack my job in and sling burgers instead, they joked. No offence but no one working a job at McDonalds deserves to get paid more than me, they would say.
What is being said, exactly, when statements such as the above are made?
Why should our doctors and nurses, teachers and train workers, refuse workers and university staff strive for more dignified working conditions and better pay, but as soon as the hospitality sector asks for a fraction more of their income it's an insult to everyone else?
Pitting one sector's worth against another is not solidarity. Better for you shouldn’t mean better than hospitality. So many of us are deserving of better pay, rights & conditions but I have a real issue with anyone that thinks that takes the form of deserving more than the person that makes their coffee.
Living in a capitalist society means that our worth is intrinsically connected to our pay and our job role. My job as a waitress has been looked down on for the entirety of my career. I am proud of the work that I do and the community that I foster but it's hard to maintain that when I know that some are happier in their role and their pay because they are safe in the knowledge that it is many socio-economic levels above mine.
Solidarity is crucial in reversing this. Solidarity does not mean fighting harder for your pay and your rights because you see one singular coffee company in a sea of thousands offering their workers a pay rise. Solidarity does not mean belittling the worth of an industry heavily reliant on zero hour and minimum wage contracts. Solidarity does not mean you are worth more than someone else just because they make your coffee for you.
Solidarity is standing with your colleagues as you ask for better for yourselves. And solidarity is standing with other sectors as they ask for better for themselves, too. Solidarity is the knowledge that no human being is worth more than another, regardless of what they do and that we are all equal in our fight against capitalism, united against the small percentage of those who financially benefit from the majority not getting paid what they are worth. Our worth is dictated not by being positioned above another, but by asking for the same for everyone, by fighting for equal worth across every sector.
I want to walk into a hospital and know that everyone, from those performing surgery, to conducting care on patients, to making coffee and lunch to cleaning the floors and emptying the bins are all being paid enough to live a good life and are being treated at work in a respectful and empathic manner. I want the worth and social contribution of each worker, no matter what sector, to be universally recognised and I do not want anyone walking through their working day feeling like they are inferior to those in other sectors.
I don’t think that's too much to ask for.
Words by Rachel Hendry
Art by James Yeo
