Unsurprisingly the CBI and the dodgy right wing ideologues at the Tax Dodgers Alliance are suggesting that leading General Secretaries, such as Dave Prentis, are wrong to suggest that their members should be protected from cuts to pay for a crisis that was not of their making.
Mathew Elliott is clearly doing the bidding for the new administration, who are openly suggesting that it may be time not just for a pay freeze but pay cuts in the public sector.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/may/20/public-sector-pay Elliot is cheered on the sidelines by the CBI who laughingly suggest that public sector pay is on average £30 more per week than the private sector (no analysis on which jobs, part time equivalent posts or any other non-pay benefits but let’s not let such trivial issues as the truth get in the way of headlines!)
Lets first of all get some facts straight. A pay freeze when inflation and RPI in particular is running at the 5% mark is a pay cut. The public sector have already been asked to tighten their belts to the tune of a 5% reduction in take-home pay since the money they earn is worth less in their pockets now than it was 2 years ago. With over 500,000 low paid workers in UNISON’s local government membership alone I would be calling for our General Secretary’s head if he didn’t seek to protect out most vulnerable members. If the labour party had been bold enough in advancing a living wage as Dave has called for over many years we might not have seen working class people deserting the labour party
But back to the assertions of ‘Elliot the idiot’. The idea that the IMF would be knocking at the UK’s doors demanding debt repayments is laughable. The fact that we remained outside of the disastrous euro-zone is itself proof of the way in which, despite the economic catastrophe, brought about by free-market unabated capitalism, the economy has survived, is proof enough that we have been able to steer through the storm.
Aside from the immoral position that public sector workers should now be made to pay for a crisis that was not of their making this odious man is wrong on his economics. His position assumes that public sector workers and public sector spending does not support the economy. The reality is that in some areas of the UK the local economy is so heavily dependent on the public sector that to cut now would be like chopping off the blood supply to small business – local shops where workers spend their money, local suppliers who have public sector bodies as a major client base, would all be hit. And much harder than the international companies that soak up the major contracts that put little back into local economies.
And what about the banks? The fact that we were in a position to put together a rescue package and with that acquire share-holdings that will grow means that if we carefully nurture the recovery we can realise billions back from the bank bailouts. Coupled with more effective bank regulation our money can and will be reclaimed. The Tories know that. It was a major argument by the Liberal Democrats. But there is an inconvenient truth which is that both parties to the coalition are hell bent on small state ideology. The banking crisis has provided a convenient cloak in which to engage in a slash and burn on public spending in the guise of ‘strong and stable government’. The unsustainable debt argument is simply their day to ‘bury bad news’. If the prospect of recovering billions was to be realised it would do two things. Firstly take away the need to force through huge spending cuts and secondly make those cuts a lot less palatable to the public. Recovering money form the banks is not even discussed or questioned, perhaps showing the paucity of effective political journalism.
Elliott’s piece and the stance of the CBI is just the beginning of operation smokescreen. Let’s hope that no General Secretary of any public sector union is timid in responding to the self-interested posturing by right wing commentators and hirelings of the public service industrial complex. The wheels have come off capitalism and well they know it. It’s the job of public sector unions to shift the focus of the debate.
Anna Rose
