After The Budget - Unions Must Launch Pay Fight

After The Budget - Unions Must Launch Pay Fight

Millions of public sector workers will have vainly sifted through Hammond’s budget for details of any pay rises. After years of Tory pay caps, the catastrophic fall in living standards will be maintained. Two million local government workers and half a million civil servants didn’t even get a mention. NHS workers got a vague promise that a “funded” pay rise above the 1% pay cap may be on its way - but only if they are willing to accept changes to their terms and conditions in return.

Many workers will now be looking to the trade union leaders for what should be done next. The local government, civil servants and health unions rightly coordinated their pay claims to the employers and the government.

However a number of trade union leaders placed too much faith in the idea that the Tories would lift the pay restraint after the shock general election result and naively believed that all they had to do was write letters to MPs and lobby government “to do the right thing”.

Unions like Unison resisted the calls from Socialist Party members to lose no time and prepare for action.

The truth is that the government’s real intentions were revealed early on. In the summer the teachers were only offered 1-2%; and then shortly after the police and prison officers were offered “unfunded deals” of just above 1%.

Despite this, with the exception of the PCS, the unions prevaricated and valuable time was lost in getting the unions strike-ready to take on the government. It is critical that they now play catch up and act fast.