Labour front bench support for pay freeze 'morally wrong and economically wrong'

#lab12 UNISON General Secretary Dave Prentis, in moving composite 2 on the economic alternative to austerity, condemned the Con Dem pay freeze and said that public servic workers expect Labour to do the same. In a clear response to the pre-conference spinning of Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls,  Dave said “to those who believe that driving down further the pay of public service workers will save jobs, I say you are wrong. Wrong morally and wrong economically"  http://www.unison.org.uk/asppresspack/pressrelease_view.alabsp?id=2827 This is, of course, the same Ed Balls who wrote in 1991 that a national minimum wage 'could make poverty worse'! http://unisonactive.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/balls-opponent-of-nmw-supporter-of.html

Pay – a fertile battleground to fight on

Gregor Gall has picked up on last week’s NDC speech by Dave Prentis in which he pledged a campaign leading to industrial action on the public sector pay freeze. Although Gall is wrong in his generalisation that pension contributions went up across the board in April (in LGPS there has been no increase), he is correct to identify 3 reasons why a fight on pay has more potency and unifying potential than pensions – its immediacy, its equal impact on all workers’ living standards and the recurring nature of pay bargaining:
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/content/view/full/120782

Dave Prentis call to arms - "we will smash pay freeze"

#undc12 "Our week to show our unity, our solidarity, to set out our battle plans. To show the most right-wing government in our history that we will stand in their way” said Dave Prentis in opening his General Secretary's address to Conference. The well received speech included a strong pledge to lead the union into a fight against the public sector pay freeze: "We have to be brave, we have to be bold, we have to be strong, we have to be proud. And together we will smash this pay freeze"
http://www.unison.org.uk/asppresspack/pressrelease_view.asp?id=2728

NJC Pay - Time to fight not 'suffer' in silence

Widespread anger amongst local government workers in England, Northern Ireland and Wales has greeted the refusal of local authority employers to make any pay offer for the third successive year. It begs the question, despite ritualistic submission of annual pay claims, whether collective bargaining actually exists in the National Joint Council (NJC) for local government workers?
http://www.unison.org.uk/asppresspack/pressrelease_view.asp?id=2613