The survey forms a key part of our anti cuts campaign. We know that members and their families are struggling to make ends meet. The recent rise in VAT has come on top of price rises on household essentials, cuts in benefits and proposals to increase pension contributions - all at a time when members are being hit by pay freezes, pay cuts and redundancies. In this survey we hope to obtain clear evidence to show the hardship these austerity measures are causing our members.
The survey should take no longer than 15 minutes to complete and we would urge as many members’ as possible to take part in the survey. You will be making an important contribution to the union’s campaign against the cuts.
We will be asking members some quite sensitive questions, but it is information that is necessary for us to be able to calculate the true impact of the cuts on their finances. The information will be treated as completely confidential. The results will provide the Unions with hard evidence that will help us make our case in negotiations on pay and pensions and our campaigning and media work.
We are inviting members to volunteer to be interviewed to look at their situation in more depth. In doing so you are not committing yourselves to sharing any more information than you would be completely comfortable in doing.
We are also hoping to get some volunteers who would be willing to have their story told (either named or anonymous) to highlight the plight of members’ personal circumstances in our campaigning and media work.
We know that the cuts are going to bite over a number of years. The survey is intended to be the start of a longer process of tracking the impact on members. We would like to be able to return to members in six or twelve months time to see how the cuts are affecting them. If you would be willing to provide an email address to allow us to contact you in future, we would be extremely grateful.
