Local members of Unite the Union in Sheffield gathered on The Moor on October 1, 2024, calling for the re-nationalisation of the energy sector, and the regulator Ofgem, after energy prices were hiked 10 per cent.
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00:00Well today, the price cap, the energy price cap is going up and it's going up by 10%.
00:05Now this is when people are struggling, in conjunction with some people losing their
00:10winter fuel allowance, or actually the majority of pensioners losing their winter fuel allowance.
00:14This is completely unmanageable for people and people will die this winter because they're
00:20cold. We really need the, I think Ofgem itself has failed. It needs to be put into public
00:26ownership. That's one thing. We want the stopping of the imposition, the force of the
00:33imposition of prepaid meters. Some people want a prepaid meter but the majority of people
00:38don't and people are forced to have prepaid meters. Prepaid meters always cost more. You
00:44can actually get cut off if you've got a prepaid meter because if you don't put anything in
00:48it, you get cut off. That actually happened to a friend of mine recently. And we just
00:55want, we want a reasonable, we want a reasonable cost for our energy. It is so expensive to
01:01people. What with everything else going up and now the energy going up by this much,
01:06it's completely unreasonable.
01:08And I guess final question for you obviously, just to touch on the winter fuel payment,
01:11which as you've mentioned, the majority of pensioners will be losing.
01:14Yes.
01:15What are the union's thoughts and feelings on that?
01:21Terrible. Awful. It's disgraceful. Absolutely disgraceful. You know, the retired members
01:30of our union unite and also the community members. I'm a community member but many of
01:36us are retired as well. A lot of people live from home to mouth and I don't think the people
01:43in government with their £90,000 a year income, they don't know what's going on in the world.
01:50And I think it's a mean, I think it's a really mean thing that they've done, really miserly.
01:56And actually I think it's very badly thought out anyway.