I have an interest in what you are about to read. Yes I am standing as Labour’s parliamentary candidate for the constituency, but, in addition to this, Burton is my home town. Burton is where I went to school, where I learnt about the local industries, where my family still lives, and where you can smell the brewing process on the air emanating from the town’s breweries. Burton has always been a brewery town built astride the River Trent, where making beer flows through the place.

Making things has been the purpose lying at the foundation of so many towns and cities in Britain. And making things lies at the core of many communities and their identities. Burton is no different – its people have made beer for generations.

So I was saddened to learn that one of the major employers and remaining breweries, Molson Coors, was considering reducing the pay of some brewery workers by up to a third and rearranging working conditions. Through the very sensible work of Unite, the workers and the brewery’s management, a deal was finally accepted after a number of months of dispute. But what continues to concern me is that the spectre of the low-wage economy arriving and casting a shadow over the town.

This month has seen a small fall in the constituency’s jobless total, but I believe this masks a new employment regime dominated by insecurity and falling living standards. I am concerned that these figures hide a lost generation of young people being consigned to the dole queue.

Nationally the jobs market remains dominated by insecure, low-waged employment coupled with a real fall in wages since the coalition came to power in May 2010. Average hourly wages have plunged 5.5 per cent in real terms, again, since 2010. And around a million people in the country are thought to be on zero-hours contracts.

Real earnings, outside of the boardroom, lag at 1.1 per cent, badly behind the RPI inflation rate of 3.1 per cent. Jumps in the cost of living have more than swallowed up meagre pay rises, with fuel bills now averaging £1,500 annually and some rail fares could rise by up to nine per cent. Youth unemployment in Burton remains a serious concern and nationally for those aged 16-24, increased by 15,000 to 973,000.

As the shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, Rachel Reeves MP, said last week:

‘It’s an economy that, for far too many people, seems only to offer work that is insecure, poorly paid, and in the worst cases simply exploitative.’

The pursuit of finding and staying in work is now dominated by the prospect of low-waged, insecure employment. How many jobs that are available in Burton and the surrounding area are minimum-waged, temporary, or on a zero-hours contract?

I agree with the sentiment that we should always talk up our local economy, but it must be remembered that the low-wage economy is here already for many – a low-wage economy which is the driving force behind a cost of living crisis while energy, food, childcare, and transport costs soar.

We need the creation of more ‘real’ jobs paying decent wages; more help to get our young talents off the dole queues and the long-term unemployed back to into work; and an economic policy that pumps demand into the economy.

Surely the commodification of labour – to use people as mere units of production without a thought to their workplace rights – is something all of us who follow the banner of progressive politics vehemently oppose? We should stand shoulder to shoulder – trade unionists and party members – united in fighting against the attritional devaluation of what it means to be the worker.

I believe a low wage economy is everything One Nation Labour is not. As the economy heals we must fight to ensure that the worker shares in the benefits and is not used as economic kindling in profit creation. Progress’ Purple Papers calls for ‘jobs-led growth’, growth which must value and protect the worker and which must not be founded on a low-wage economy.

And what would Labour do? Ed Miliband has said:

‘We need an economy that would help us to rebuild Britain as One Nation. Not where we live apart, in two nations. Building that economy won’t be easy. It will require us all to play our part. Shareholders and workers. Public sector and private sector. Business, trade unions and government. The campaign for a living wage is a central part of it.’

It is greed and the peddling of fear that is the grease which oils the slide into a low-wage economy. And it is greed and fear against which we, as One Nation Labour, must take a stand.

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Jon Wheale is Labour’s candidate for Burton, seat 30 on the Frontline 40. He tweets @JonWheale
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Photo: TaxBrackets.org