On Monday, I joined workers on the picket lines outside the BT offices in Glasgow.

The decision to strike is never an easy one - and is always a last resort. But BT and Openreach workers across the country have had enough.

Last year, their chief executive saw their pay rise by 32%.

Meanwhile, the lowest paid workers were being forced to rely on food banks as the cost-of-living crisis began to bite.

I joined the picket lines because workers deserve dignity at work, and respect. Fundamentally, it is about showing respect to those workers, without which a company simply could not operate.

But BT and Openreach are hardly alone in showing disrespect to workers and consumers. This week, BP reported its biggest quarterly profits in 14 years.

A profit of £6.9bn - triple the amount in the previous quarter.

In the first six months of this year, the five biggest oil companies in the world made £100bn in profits. At the same time, energy bills across the country skyrocketed by 54%.

In October, bills are currently expected to go up again.

Every single household in this city now starts to worry each time the word inflation is used, after bills have started to increase at their fastest rate in 40 years. But this week should crystalise what is meant by inflation: higher bills for you, higher profits for them.

While families are filled with fear about the prospect of heating their homes this winter, executives at some of the world’s biggest companies are laughing on their way to the bank.

It is perverse and disgusting. We should all be united in our anger at a broken system that continues to reward those with deepest pockets.

It is those companies, with their growing profit margins, that are causing this crisis - and they expect us to pay for it.

Meanwhile, candidates for the Tory leadership and Prime Minister are arguing about tax cuts for the rich, and cutting the pay of public servants outside of London.

And in Scotland, the government is more intently focused on taking the UK Government to court to argue for the power to hold a referendum; powers that its own ministers believe they do not have.

These are distractions from the sheer scale of suffering and heartbreak that will befall households in the coming months - unless something is done to stem the tide of this crisis.

Today, Glasgow City Council will be talking about some of the measures that it is doing to alleviate the worst effects of the crisis - measures that are only in place for one year despite us knowing that the effects of the crisis will be felt for far, far longer.

But the truth is that there is little Glasgow City Council can do in the face of intransigence at Holyrood and Westminster. The people in our communities deserve so much better. They deserve Governments that will focus on dignity and respect.

They deserve a Government that would stand up to the oil companies and implement an immediate windfall tax to lower your energy bills and stem this crisis. A Government that would treat communities with respect, and build a system to give everyone dignity.

We need a Labour Government to weather this crisis.