Chancellor Jeremy Hunt at a cabinet meeting (Picture: Number 10/Flickr)
The Tories want to crank up the assault on public sector workers, even as wages are plummeting. Chancellor Jeremy Hunt was the keynote speaker at the dinner to mark the end of the annual Margaret Thatcher Conference—celebrating a ruling class warrior.
Speaking in the luxurious surroundings of the City’s Guildhall on Monday evening, he announced a new “public sector productivity review”. It wants to extract more from workers for less pay.
He wants to at least match the concessions screwed out of the workforce by private sector bosses.“Our job creators, entrepreneurs have bounced back, but the public sector is still feeling the effects of a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic,” said Hunt.
He enthused that squeezing more from the workforce was “the route followed by Margaret Thatcher, whose union reforms, privatisations and support for competition delivered lasting growth and productivity”.
Hunt is a multimillionaire. In 2017 he made an estimated £16.8 million from the sale of Hotcourses, an education listings service.
The Tories plan underlines that it will take serious struggle to make them cough up the cash for NHS workers, school and local government workers, civil service workers and others in pay battles now.
Speaking at the same conference, education secretary Gillian Keegan, attacked trade unions fighting below-inflationdeals. She said they had rejected a “fair and reasonable offer” and were pursuing their own “narrow interests” rather than that of children impacted by that pandemic.
In fact it’s the unions who stand up against the Tory wage-cutting that makes it harder to recruit and retrain workers and devalues people.
The pay fights are crucial. Figures released on Tuesday showed that once inflation is taken into account, wages are still falling. Using the most accurate official measure of inflation, the RPI index, real pay is down 5.1 percent in a year.
The Office for National Statistics said on Tuesday that average private sector wages, excluding bonuses, were 7.6 percent higher than a year earlier over the three month to April. Average public sector wages were 5.6 percent higher. Across all employees, annual growth in total pay, including bonuses was 6.5 percent—still far below inflation.
TUC union federation general secretary Paul Nowak said, “Working people have had enough. Wages are still not keeping up with inflation and family budgets can’t take any more pressure.
“The government must give public sector workers a real pay rise, boost the minimum wage to £15 per hour, and end their draconian attack on the right to strike in the Strikes Bill.”
Wages are going down, but bosses want far bigger cuts. Bankers and other parasites are betting that the Bank of England will react to the figures by raising interest rates even higher. That’s in an effort to crash the economy and make people grateful to have a job.
The yield on some government bonds rose on Tuesday above the level reached during the turmoil following Liz Truss’s disastrous “mini” budget last autumn.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said, “Pay is still falling behind inflation. Profiteering continues to make people worse off as wages chase sky high prices.
“Meanwhile, the bosses of Sainsbury’s and British Gas are being richly rewarded for rampant profits in food and energy. The rest of us are being told to expect a pay cut. Last week, Sainsbury’s boss, Simon Roberts pocketed £5 million. This week Centrica boss Chris O’Shea is in line for a £3.7 million bonus.”
Graham is right to point out how the fat cats are making millions. But the key immediate question is fighting and winning the pay battles.
Everyone needs to support the junior doctors, university workers and all of those striking and picketing this week.
Health workers set to strike across four Manchester hospitals
Bus workers rejected an offer and came back out
