| Unions have responded to today’s Spending Review by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Rishi Sunak told the House of Commons that public sector pay would be frozen, except for the lowest paid, but nurses, doctors and other NHS staff would receive a pay rise. He warned unemployment was expected to rise fo 2.6m by mid 2021. TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady said: “For all the government’s talk of levelling up, this spending review will level down Britain, hitting key workers’ pay and breaking the government’s promises to the lowest paid. “After a decade of standstill pay, yet another pay freeze is a kick in the teeth for the key workers in the public sector who kept the country going in this crisis. “And workers expecting a national minimum wage increase – not least the two million who are key workers – have been let down by the government’s decision to row back on the full rise they were promised. “If the chancellor wants to stop mass unemployment, the test will be how quickly today’s infrastructure announcements deliver enough good jobs in the parts of the country that need them most. “The TUC has shown that investing £85bn in green transport and infrastructure could create more than 1.2 million jobs in two years. And the chancellor should have acted to unlock the 600,000 existing gaps and vacancies in the public sector. “As unemployment rises, the UK’s safety net is still broken – and the chancellor did little to fix it. “He should have raised sick pay to at least the real Living Wage so that people can afford to self-isolate. He should have boosted universal credit. And he should have helped working families with a rise in child benefit and extra cash to keep nurseries open.” UNISON general secretary Dave Prentis said: “This is austerity plain and simple. A decade of spending cuts left public services exposed when Covid came calling. The government is making the same disastrous mistake again. “Going after the pay of millions will be a bitter pill for key workers getting the UK through the pandemic and out the other side. “The Chancellor wants to pause the pay of care, school, council and other public service workers who’ve been on fast forward all year. “Extra money in pockets gets spent locally. Less than a pound more a week for some won’t save the thousands of ailing shops and leisure, arts and hospitality venues across the country. “Health staff have already shown they and the NHS more than deserve a rise this year. This can’t wait on a lengthy pay review body process. The government should deliver the goods now. “Reviving the economy will take a gargantuan effort from everyone. That means investing in the entire economy, not seeking to divide and rule between the sectors. Key workers mustn’t be taken for granted and left to carry the Covid can.” PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said: “Civil servants and other public sector staff will feel a deep sense of betrayal at today’s pay freeze. “Despite keeping the country running during the covid crisis, supplying Universal Credit and helping businesses access the furlough scheme, the Chancellor has justified a pay freeze by pointing to lower wages in the private sector. “The answer is to raise wages across the board to increase spending power in the economy, to aid our recovery not pit public and private sector workers against one another, like crabs in a barrel. “Today’s announcement has intensified long standing anger at a decade of pay restraint and increased the likelihood of industrial unrest in the public sector.” Napo general secretary Ian Lawrence said: “Only last week the government and the public referred to public sector workers as ‘essential key workers’, and the ‘hidden heroes’ of the pandemic. This week they are expected to pay for the cost of the pandemic from their salaries. It is an utter disgrace and their previous warm words were clearly just paying lip service to our hard working essential workers. “To say they cannot afford to give essential key workers a pay rise is astonishing, as government seem more than able to find vast sums of money for poor contracts from PPE to test and trace. If they have no money it is because they have wasted so much in their abysmal handling of the pandemic. “It is outrageous that the Chancellor has made a statement in Parliament thus negating collective bargaining for our members. To do this before unions have even had a chance to begin 2021 pay talks undermines industrial relations and will leave our members feeling angry and disenfranchised by their employers. “I call on the Chancellor to urgently review this policy as a matter of urgency. He has totally misread the room by penalising our key workers. We will be asking parliamentarians to challenge the government and support our hidden heroes.” Prospect general secretary Mike Clancy said: “The Chancellor started his statement by promising stronger public services, but by freezing the pay of many thousands of public servants he is undermining the very people who are the foundation of our public sector. “The comparison of public and private sector wage growth was insulting and failed to acknowledge the public servants have just emerged from eight years of draconian pay restraint, and those who suffered the most under that restraint are set to bear the brunt again. “This freeze will cause huge damage to recruitment and retention in key areas, such as environmental agencies and health and safety, and will be a bitter blow to people who have gone above and beyond to deal with the twin challenges of coronavirus and Brexit. “While increased spending for some departments is welcome, it is set against the fact that most have faced deep cuts over the past decade. “And if we are really going to recover strongly from the pandemic, the government must address the millions of workers still unfairly excluded from his economic support schemes.” NEU joint general secretary Dr Mary Bousted said: “The Chancellor said he wants stronger public services but has delivered a body blow to staff in our schools and colleges. Education workers are key workers who have kept the country going during the pandemic, but pay cuts are their only reward from this government. “Teachers and support staff are working in schools and colleges without PPE, without social distancing and without adequate cleaning. Teachers are teaching their normal timetable and then preparing remote learning for pupils isolating at home. They are supporting pupils who are anxious and stressed because of the increased challenges Covid is bringing to their families. “It is not enough for government ministers to thank teachers for their vital contribution during Covid. Such sentiments ring hollow when they are then subject to a pay freeze which follows previous pay freezes and years of below-inflation pay increases which have eaten into the real value of their pay since 2010. Support staff face the prospect of yet more below-inflation pay increases. These pay cuts will hit education workers just as inflation is expected to pick up in late 2021. “Today’s announcement will negate all the government’s attempts to keep teachers in the profession. It will make recruitment and retention problems even worse to the detriment of our young people, their parents and the economy. “This attempt to divide and rule makes no economic sense. The government should be acting to support pay for all workers at this difficult time. Cutting the pay of teachers and other public sector workers will reduce spending power in the economy. It will reduce the amount they spend on sectors already in crisis such as retail and hospitality, so attacks on public sector pay are attacks on private sector workers too. “While it is welcome that the Chancellor has not cut back the planned spending on schools as some feared, this spending increase is not enough to complete the job of restoring previous cuts and includes nothing for the extra costs of Covid-19 which schools are currently facing. “True levelling up means investing more in education and other public services, not levelling down by further attacks on pay. The government is breaking its promises to increase teacher pay, but the recruitment and retention problems that gave rise to those promises have not gone away. At a time when staff in education have contributed so much to the pandemic response, this attack on education staff is neither fair nor economically defensible.” UCU general secretary Jo Grady said: “Today’s statement recognises the importance of education and skills as vital in our recovery as we move forward from the current health crisis but the problems in the education sector are of this government’s own making after years of underfunding and ever rising workloads. “This spending review was a missed opportunity to invest in rebuilding the further education sector to meet the country’s skills needs after years of funding cuts, jobs losses and pay cuts. We now need investment in the education workforce to ensure the sector can recruit and retain the staff it needs to deliver on the government’s skills ambitions. “The government is wasting the opportunity to invest and rebuild from the current health crisis. Instead of talking about pay restraint, which will further damage the morale of the very people that have picked up the pieces of this government’s failings during the pandemic. We need investment to ensure that we have the skills to get the country moving again. “The pandemic has taught us that it’s public services and key workers that are the people who hold our country together – they shouldn’t pay for this government’s mistakes.” Head of Bectu Philippa Childs said: “If the Chancellor wants to build a sustainable recovery, he must support the highly skilled professionals in the creative industries who provided a much needed bright spot during the last recession. “Bectu analysis of ONS data shows that between 2008 and 2018 the contribution to the UK economy of creative, arts and entertainment activities grew three times as much as the UK industry average. Motion picture, video and TV programme production grew by six times as much. “The success and hard work of creatives during the good times, has been rewarded with support schemes that many cannot access during the bad times. The Chancellor must urgently address the flaws in SEISS, which is excluding thousands of self employed and freelance creatives, so that they can build the UK’s economic recovery for the second time this century.” Usdaw general secretary Paddy Lillis said: “We provided the Low Pay Commission with evidence of why we need a new deal for workers, which includes at least £10 per hour and an end to unjust rip-off youth rates. Today the Chancellor missed the opportunity to fully recognise the huge efforts low-paid key workers have made through the pandemic. “Millions of low-paid workers have provided essential services to help ensure the country is fed, healthy and safe through the lockdown and will continue to do so. Usdaw members employed in our supermarkets, distribution warehouses, food processing sites and home delivery operations welcomed the key worker status, but that respect and appreciation must not fade into the background when this national crisis passes. “There needs to be lasting and fundamental changes to the way society views our lowest paid workers. We need a new deal for the workers: a minimum wage of at least £10 per hour, an end to insecure employment, respect for shopworkers and action to ensure that retail jobs are no longer underpaid and undervalued. “Going to work should mean a decent standard of living for all workers, not least young workers. They are more likely to be paid less than older colleagues, even when doing the same job. They also often work hours that are not guaranteed in their contract, so they really need fairer and better pay alongside protection against insecure work. So reducing the age that National Living wage is paid from 25 to 23 years old is a step in the right direction, but is they need to go much further. “Usdaw has campaigned for years to abolish youth rates. We continue to campaign for a national minimum wage of at least £10 per hour for all ages and call on the Government to tackle insecure employment contracts. “Many low-paid workers have to rely on Universal Credit to get by, and the temporary £20 uplift in Universal Credit has been really important in these difficult times. Today was a missed opportunity for the Chancellor to make that increase permanent and give some assurance to millions of low income families.” NASUWT general secretary Patrick Roach said: “The short-sighted decision to freeze teachers’ pay is out of step with public opinion and is a slap in the face to the teaching profession, particularly at a time when teachers have been serving on the frontline, risking their own health to maintain education and support for children and young people. “The Chancellor’s claim that a public sector pay freeze is necessary as private sector wages fell by nearly 1% in the six months to September is no justification for imposing further real-terms cuts to the pay of teachers. “The government has tried to trumpet headlines of a 3.1% pay award in 2020 for teachers, but the reality is that two-thirds of teachers were eligible for no more than a 2.75% pay award and many teachers received nothing “This is on the back of a decade of real-terms pay erosion which has created a 20% shortfall in teachers’ salaries. “The government has presided over a teachers’ pay lottery, short-changing teachers and failing to ensure that school and academy employers give teachers the pay awards they are entitled to. “The Chancellor’s commitments on school budgets have not addressed the ongoing additional financial pressures that all schools are facing and will continue to face into 2021 and beyond as a result of the pandemic. The academic, social and emotional cost of tackling Covid-19 and its impact on children and young people is likely to be significant and will only increase the strain on school budgets. “The government’s pledge to stick to pre-pandemic funding commitments will be wholly insufficient in ensuring schools and children’s education recover fully from the impact of Covid-19.” Unite assistant general secretary Gail Cartmail said: “The chancellor Rishi Sunak has delivered a body blow to the public sector workers he has targeted to bear the brunt of the costs of the pandemic with a pay freeze – his so-called ‘pause’. “It is doubly disappointing that the chancellor has adopted ‘divide and rule’ tactics over public sector pay with an award for NHS staff, but a freeze on pay for millions of others, such as teaching assistants, who are already low paid. “The sop of £250 to the two million public sector workers earning under £24,000-a-year is insulting and compares badly with the inflated sums that the government has wasted on PPE contracts for those with links to the Tory establishment. “This mainly female workforce already juggle work commitments, childcare responsibilities and care for elderly relatives yet kept vital services running throughout the pandemic, at times due to government failures in PPE provision, risking their own health in the service of others. “It is also a blow to local economies and high streets where public sector workers spend a large proportion of their wages. “The prime minister’s ‘levelling up’ agenda is in tatters as a result of the chancellor’s divisive pay announcement which does nothing to restore the ‘lost’ pay in real terms from a decade of austerity.” GMB acting general secretary Warren Kenny said: “There won’t be a ‘pause’ in how much rent, mortgages, food and transport costs. The Chancellor couldn’t even bring himself to say the words ‘pay freeze’. He’s delivered a real terms cut for the very people who have carried us through this pandemic at great personal expense. “The same workers whose wages still hadn’t recovered from a decade of so called ‘pay restraint’. Punishing public sector workers doesn’t help those in the private sector and it doesn’t help the economy. By trying to divide and conquer he’s letting every worker down.” |