Poetry – The New Working Class

The New Working Class

 

The shelf stackers, delivers and drivers

Can hardly be called skivers.

The nurses and old people carers

The compassion sharers.

They’re the new working class

 

Grafting on minimum wage and zero hours,

Exploited by those in their ivory towers.

Picking the crops in all types of weather

Cleaning wards and polishing leather

They’re the new working class.

 

Pushed off assembly lines by automation;

Now delivering parcels across the nation.

Kicked out of the pits and out of the mills;

Now having to learn far lesser skills.

They’re the new working class.

 

They get treated like dirt

And looked down upon,

But it’s them that we turn to

When things go wrong –

The new working class.

 

Opher – 17.5.2020