The union also calls on the Chancellor to use next week’s Spring Statement to end the unjust two-child rule, which is applied to Child Tax Credit and Universal Credit and penalises working mothers with three or more children.
John Hannett - Usdaw General Secretary says: “Usdaw represents hundreds of thousands of working parents and today we are rightly celebrating the role that mums play in the home, community, workplace and wider society.
“Times are tough at the moment and a lot of working families are struggling to make ends meet. There are many issues that affect family incomes, including frozen working age benefits and cuts in Universal Credit, but today we are focussing on the unfair two-child rule.
“It breaks the link between need and a minimum level of support, a fundamental pillar of the social security system. It blames and punishes children for having more than one brother or sister and enshrines in law the unethical and deeply unfair principle that some children, because of the circumstances of their birth, are less deserving than others.
“The two-child rule also increases and deepens poverty. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has projected that 600,000 more children will live in absolute child poverty by 2021.
“The deeper families move into poverty, the harder it is for them to ‘work their way out’. The Government surely cannot in good conscience wish to increase the number of poor children, larger families are already at an increased risk of poverty.
“So today, whilst we are thanking mothers for everything they do, I hope the Government will take some time to consider the impact their policies have on families and that the Chancellor will reverse the two-child policy, which is just plain wrong.”
Notes for editors:
Usdaw (Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers) is the UK's fifth biggest and the fastest growing trade union with over 430,000 members. Membership has increased by more than 28% over the decade. Most Usdaw members work in the retail sector, but the union also has many members in transport, distribution, food manufacturing, chemicals and other trades.
For Usdaw press releases visit: http://www.usdaw.org.uk/news and you can follow us on Twitter @UsdawUnion