PAY rises are not the cause of the cost-of-living crisis — they are the solution to it, National Education Union leader Kevin Courtney told a union rally on Saturday.

At the packed closing rally of the Campaign for Trade Union Freedom’s weekend conference Mr Courtney said ministers were wrong to claim wage rises would drive inflation and rejected the idea that collapsing living standards could be blamed on the war in Ukraine.

The war was a cause of the cost-of-living crisis but only in the sense that a loud noise can cause an avalanche, he said, saying years of real-terms cuts to workers’ wages had been like the snow building up before the catastrophe.

Rail union RMT leader Mick Lynch warned we should not underestimate the extraordinary attack on labour rights planned in Tory legislation to impose minimum service levels on transport.

The law would make unions responsible for naming individual members to cross their own picket lines and work during strikes, with those individuals liable to be sacked if they refuse and unions to have their assets sequestered.

The movement should work with everyone possible to stop these laws, including the devolved Scottish and Welsh governments and regional English authorities on a non-sectarian basis, he urged.

Labour MP Barry Gardiner outlined the extreme profiteering by big companies that was driving inflation, with profits at supermarkets Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury’s up more than 90 per cent on pre-pandemic figures while foodbank queues lengthened, and former shadow chancellor John McDonnell said the most basic requirement of Labour MPs was to support workers on picket lines.

The rally was addressed by a dozen leading labour movement figures including TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady, People’s Assembly national secretary Laura Pidcock and Young Labour chair Nabeela Mowlana, as well as Morning Star editor Ben Chacko.