UNISONActive Instant Reaction - A budget for the Rich by the Rich to keep them Rich

Note the headlines from today's Budget by the Tories and see if they vary in any way from the predictions offered last week by our own UNISON conference.

• VAT to rise to 20% from January 2011
• Public sector pay frozen for two years
• Child benefit frozen for three years
• Council Tax frozen
• More Privatisations

During his speech Osborne continually used the word fairness. Well, fairness in the drawing rooms of Mayfair and in the living rooms of Merseyside obviously means two entirely different things.

 

For Unison members our standards of living are going in only one direction over the next few years.The pay freeze announced means that for the majority of us, there is a pay cut of nearly 5.5% in the offing. 58% of local government employees earn less than £16,000. A pay freeze cuts £880 from that over the next two years .VAT increases means that an average grocery shop shop alone of £100 per week means a further cut of £96 in family income. Then add in the freeze in child benefit……

 

Local Government like all public services has spent years being told that it needs to become more efficient. Efficiency has become our watchword and billions in efficiency savings have been delivered to the Treasury. In the Financial Services Industries instead, banks were led to the brink by the greedy and unscrupulous and rescued by our money, our taxpayers' pounds. Now we are being slaughtered by a government with no mandate and no conscience.

 

The overall effect of this on our economy will be to ensure a lasting recession and a vast increase in unemployment. Public services will be decimated.

 

http://www.unison.org.uk/news/news_view.asp?did=6228  shows the official reaction from newly re elected General Secretary Dave Prentis.

 

 Make sure all your members see it. We will be counting on them in the near future to take action