Tuesday 11 September 2007

TUC annual conference - public sector workers should receive a below inflation pay increase?

Trade Union Congress
Today at the TUC (Trade Union Congress) public sector workers are to decide whether they should start down the road to coordinated industrial action. The Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) has put forward a motion saying it "deplores" the "pay limit" set by the government and recommends that unions "discuss coordinated industrial action". The proposed motion follows the PCS members at the Department for Work and Pensions rejecting a three-year deal by an overwhelming three to one. A PCS ballot on strike action is likely to take place within weeks.

Gordon Brown told the TUC in a speech to them on Monday that he would: "always put stability first" saying: "No loss of discipline, no resort to the easy options, no unaffordable promises, no taking risks with inflation. So let me be straightforward with you - pay discipline is essential to prevent inflation, to maintain growth and create more jobs - and so that we never return to the old boom and bust of the past."

In reply to Gordon's speech, Mark Serwotka, PCS's general secretary, said: "Our members are not fat cats, on inflation-busting salaries. They are not the cause of inflation; they are the victims of it."

There is a growing sense of anger amongst public sector workers. Prison guards have already taken strike action, while teachers, police and nurses have been amongst workers protesting the below inflation pay deal.

Q. Is it right that public sector workers should receive a below inflation pay increase?

Click: HERE to vote.

(The results are archived by the British Library)

Please click here to subscribe to my feed

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The large Brown one says no pay rise above inflation, for the "workers". Huge allowances for the denizens of Westminster, and huge rises for labour members of innumerable quangos,and labour appointees up and down the country, and government waste of gargantuan proportions sufficient to produce huge inflation. Never the less, I am inclined to believe that there will be no trouble from the unions. Brown has done some sort of deal with them, and this will become clear soon.