| Strikes and action by up to three million public sector workers moved a step nearer today as unions met following more fruitless pensions talks with the government. The biggest three unions – Unite, Unison and the GMB – as well as others, including more teachers' unions, gave updates on preparations for their ballots. The National Association of Headteachers has announced this week it will ballot for industrial action, for the first time in its 114-year history. And civil service union Prospect has indicated it would be moving to a ballot. Today's meeting of the TUC's public sector liaison group followed an afternoon of further talks yesterday, both centrally and sector-by-sector, which once again confirmed the government is determined to force public servants to pay more and work longer for much less in retirement. Ministers say they will set out cost envelopes for the pensions schemes, but these will assume: an increase in contributions for the vast majority of staff; the retirement age will be linked to the rising state pension age; and pensions will be devalued by the switch in inflation indexation. The unions remain unanimous in our opposition to these unnecessary changes and we continue to point out that independent evaluation of the reforms we agreed in 2007 mean public sector pensions are affordable now and in the future. While former Labour cabinet minister John Hutton has retracted misleading claims he made in the media earlier this week, ministers continue to perpetuate the myth that their proposals are necessary to make schemes affordable. In fact, announcing the spending review in October last year chancellor George Osborne confirmed the real motivation, saying: "From the perspective of filling the hole in the public finances, we will seek changes that deliver an additional £1.8 billion of savings per year in the cost of public service pensions by 2014-15 – over and above the plans left to us by the last government." The unions fundamentally reject this crude and unfair tax on working in the public sector, and we will continue to argue for the alternative of proper investment in jobs and the public sector and a serious effort to tackle the tax dodgers who deprive our economy of more than £120 billion a year. Co-ordination with other unions of industrial action over pensions is part of our national campaign, which calls for: •No detrimental changes to pensions or the civil service compensation scheme •Strengthening of Cabinet Office-agreed measures to avoid compulsory redundancies •An end to the pay freeze and a fair pay rise for all. PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said: "Ministers are refusing to budge on the main issues of paying more and working longer for less, but there is unity among the unions and a clear momentum behind our campaign. "Briefings and meetings are being held across the union to help us prepare for what would be the biggest public sector strike for decades on 30 November. "We continue to meet and work with our colleagues from other unions at a national level and locally in our communities to build our campaign for fair pensions for all." |