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TUC backs national campaign against 2 per cent pay freeze
Dick Murray, Transport Editor8 Sep 2008
Union bosses dealt Gordon Brown a bloody nose today by backing a major campaign against the two per cent pay rise ceiling for public sector workers.
The Trades Union Congress, which represents seven million workers across the UK, gave unanimous support at its annual meeting in Brighton to fighting the pay restraint policy.
The campaign will include a demonstration in London. Unions representing teachers, binmen, local government workers and firemen are threatening to join in unless their pay is improved.
No date has been set for the campaign but it is aimed to stage it before the New Year.
The unions are demanding pay rises to match inflation - five per cent - but the Government says it cannot afford any more.
The Prime Minister is due to meet union leaders at a private dinner tomorrow and Chancellor Alistair Darling is to deliver a speech to the conference when he is expected to receive a "frosty" reception from the 720 delegates.
But in his opening speech to the conference, TUC general secretary Brendan Barber increased pressure on the Gordon Brown to unfreeze pay rises.
He said the morale of the UK workforce was being "sapped" by low pay awards that failed to match inflation.
He told delegates: "You cannot create world-class services with a workforce battered and bruised by change, sapped of morale by a thousand reorganisations and crippled by pay awards that do not begin to reflect the true cost of living.
"And don't let anyone tell us that the Government can't afford fair pay for public servants.
"If it can spend billions on consultants then surely it can find the money to give Britain's teachers, prison officers, civil servants and local government workers the fair pay they deserve."
Union leader after union leader marched up to condemn the Government - and the Prime Minister personally - over pay.
Keith Sonnet, deputy general secretary of the 1.3 million-strong Unison, said: "We expect our Labour government to get its act together, stop squabbling over the leadership and instead seriously address the problems of working people. People who feel let down."
Mark Serwotka, leader of the Public and Commercial Services union, which represents 270,000 members across civil and public services, said: "The Government has totally gone to pot."
The PCS is ordering three months of strikes from November - threatening a repeat of the "winter of discontent" 30 years ago - and Mr Serwotka called for "tens of thousands" of people to "turn out on the streets to show their anger".
"If the Tories win the [general] election and industrial strife breaks out, the fault lies with Gordon Brown and the Government," he said.
Brian Caton, leader of the Prison Officers' Association which represents prison, correction and secure psychiatric workers, said the Government had "lied and lied" over pay.
