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The trade unions are getting tough and threatening a wave of strikes this Winter unless Gordon Brown takes action to ease the effect of the economic downturn on their members.
At Brighton this week, union leaders will attack the government’s policy of pegging public sector pay rises to the official 2 percent inflation target, when inflation is actually running at 4.4 percent and expected to jump towards 5 percent as food and fuel prices rise.
They want a windfall tax on energy companies, a cap on electricity and gas prices to the consumer and higher income taxes on those earning more than 100,000 pounds a year.
What do you think of these proposals? And as times get harder, would you welcome the unions having a bigger say in government policy?
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14 comments so far
The fact Unions are calling the shots shows how weak Gordon Brown is. Some of the Union ideas are daft and harmful to the country, but Brown is looking increasingly desperate.
- Posted by The London iTypical left wing rhetoric by people who don’t live in the modern world. Whether we like it or not, today’s UK is much more of a meritocracy then it ever has been in the past. If you don’t like the job you’re in, on the pay you’re on, get another one, stop playing the victim. These so called ‘fat cat’ bosses worked their way to the top and are worth the money that the market will tolerate. If they don’t like the free market economy system, I’m sure there are still a couple of comunist countries out there that they could move to and do us all a favour.
- Posted by JasonThese people are dinosaurs from the past.
- Posted by AdamCap energy prices? Who will pay for the difference?
Borrow more we hear? Who will pay for that?
Higher taxes to pay for this? - it didn’t work in the 1970’s and it won’t work now.
The unions destroyed industry afer industry in the 1970’s by pricing British employees out of the market and they’d do it again.
I would agree to a slightly higher award, provide they switch all union member pensions to DC…
The unions should have no say in government policy. The mere fact that it should even be necessary to say so in this day and age is really quite shocking.
- Posted by MatthewOn the principle: “Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad”, I think the government should talk to the unions all the time. That should put Labour out of power for the next fifty years.
- Posted by John LambleThe Public sector unions and employees are already sending this country into a terrible financial mess because they are already grossley overpaid.Why not give them all a violin each,Nero made good use of one.
- Posted by WINISTONII agree with Jason here. Unions killed off many a thriving industry in this country with pay demands that provided un-sustainable pay and conditions for these industries.
What company in their right mind would want to locate to a coutry with strong unions and a high threat of strike action. Clearly this is why Britain was so depressed during much of the 80’s.
Market forces should dictate salaries and if you don’t think you are getting a fair wage for your skills, then you should have no trouble getting this elsewhere… if your skills really are being undervalued.
- Posted by GrantNever look back, Italian business colleagues strongly believe that the strength in the UK driven up over the last 20 odd years is primarily down to M Thatcher breaking the unions, further to that they envy our position and believe that the unions have a restrictive grip on the Italian economy – I would tend to agree with them and think we are leaner an fitter than at any time before – a place we need to be to weather the current crisis and I think that’s the big difference between the market now, bad, but not as bad as it would have been.
- Posted by Michael CastleShades of 1974!!
Even Labour diehards will shudder at the thought.
But Labour desperately needs union money and Brown desperately needs friends - any friends, so …….
- Posted by PeterThe Public Sector is vastly inefficent, mostly due to HMG’s worship of the god Job Creation. It is no longer a case of ‘pay peanuts and you get monkeys’ but a case of Public Sector bosses needing to get a grip on their brief.
- Posted by Jim xxxxThe best thing for the country is that Brown lets the unions in.
It will guarantee that the UK gets a change of government in 2010.
- Posted by JasonAre you people living in the past or what? A new Admin Assistant in the Civil Service generally will start on a salary of £10k pa, they can still be on that wage for at least 3 years with cut backs and wage fiddling the government does every year. So Winstoni how the hell is that “grossly overpaid”?.
The fact is half the thing’s people in the private sector percive about the Civil Service and us public sector workers is what was happening in the 50’s-70’s.
1. Final Salary pensions, most departments have not been on these for at least 15 years.
2. We do pay tax …OMG yes we do.
3. Over staffing, non existant very few departments are over staffed now thanks to Gordon Brown’s cull (oh yes and the civil service is not the place to work anymore).
4. Working conditions in a local office will get you spat at furniture thown at you, constant streams of abuse off the people we are trying to help.
The fact is half of you people here would not do our jobs as you can’t cut it. So please leave it alone most of us dont want to strike, but we would like decent pay.
- Posted by PeteOK people here are recycling the myths about how the unions screwed up British industry. This “leaner and fitter” stuff.
Perhaps as it has a casualised low wage workforce, the UK is therefore the most productive labour force in Europe?
No, it certainly is not. No-one would make this case.
Perhaps as there are less restrictive practices, manufacturing is the more advanced in the UK than in unionised countries?
No, it isn’t. Nobody would argue this.
Oh, and as directors get such a great slice of profit and bonuses, we’d expect workers here to be the most enthusiastic in the EU, as they aspire to greatness?
Nope, wrong again.
So there are no unions to blame for this recession, really.
High levels of education, investment in new methods and ability to retrain - all very important for an advanced economy. And how does union membership hinder these, exactly? In fact, it can have the reverse effect as people develop more communications with co-workers and feel more able to commit to a workplace on a long-term level.
We see in this thread the British, neo-Thatcherite assumptions about employee behaviour which have been discredited around the world. Believe me, the “British model” is no longer one that people want to copy.
- Posted by WaxieI don’t support the unions in their demands. Although a few in the private sector have received decent pay rises, far more have had to accept 0 - 2%…or risk losing their jobs through redundancies and businesses failing.
The public sector does come with excellent, index-linked pensions and fairly secure employment.
We’re ALL having hard times at the moment. Let’s not pretend the public sector workers are alone.
There are many things to sort out but pay isn’t one of them.
- Posted by Dane