Bang goes the government’s wage inflation target.
UK workers unions UNISON, GMB and TGWU have agreed to demand a 6% pay deal for council workers that they represent. All in all, the three unions represent about 3 million workers in all disciplines although I don’t know how many of those are council workers.
The unions say the pay deal is neccesary to help the lowest paid workers catch up with the rest of the public sector although they concede that for many, even 6% would not bring all into line with the union’s target minimum ‘living wage’ of £6.75/hr
The government, however, has been trying to suppress public-sector pay increases to below 2% in order to control inflation. Nurses and Police officers have been handed out below-inflation pay rises in recent months.
Seeing as UNISON is a traditional backer of the incumbent Labour party, it will be interesting to see how Prime Minister Brown and his Chancellor Alistair Darling handle this.
Tags: brown, darling, gmb, inflation, pay, tgwu, uk, unions, unison
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