Public Sector Pay ‘Slap In Face’

Chancellor Gordon Brown has told MPs that nurses and other public sector workers will get below inflation pay awards, sparking anger from unions. Mr Brown said he had accepted pay review body recommendations that awards be kept within the government’s 2% inflation target.

The Transport and General Workers Union said it was a “slap in the face” for public sector workers. Medical staff, senior civil servants and judges are among those affected.

The pay awards would be implemented in two stages from April 1, although the armed forces pay will be in full, said Mr Brown. “The overall awards come within the inflation target at 1.9% demonstrating our total determination to maintain discipline and stability and continue with an 11th year of sustained economic growth.”

TGWU national officer Peter Allensen said: “With the Retail Price Index at over 4% and the real cost of living higher than that, to limit pay rises to below 2% amounts to a slap in the face for public sector workers. Our members are being hit by a double whammy of below real inflation pay rises plus an increasing workload as the change agenda is rushed through with job cuts, increased pressure, poor consultation and falling morale. Increasing productivity seems to count for nothing judging by this announcement.”

According to a poll commissioned by the Royal College of Nursing, nearly two-thirds of nurses would be willing to take industrial action if they receive an unsatisfactory pay deal this year.

Commenting on the survey, RCN General Secretary, Dr Peter Carter, said: “Ministers should be under no illusions – though industrial action is never a course of action we would take lightly, the RCN is not in the business of accepting a pay cut for our members. Nurses deserve pay justice, not a pay cut.”

The RCN said the government’s offer of 1.5% amounted to a real terms pay cut for the average nurse.