Pay review sparks outrage

In mid-December the government announced that the review bodies for public sector workers pay are awarding rises of 2.8 per cent for 2025. Timed just before a holiday, ministers hoped to catch workers off guard, looking forward to a rest. They could not be more wrong.

Unions have responded swiftly and unanimously, denouncing the proposed award as a cut in real wages. Furthermore, it goes nowhere near the promised reversal of pay erosion, with even the Institute for Fiscal Studies acknowledging that in real terms, pay is still below what it was in 2010.

Offensive

Calling on the government to drop its take it or leave it stance and reopen negotiations, Royal College of Nursing general secretary Nicola Ranger described the offer as deeply offensive, “The Government has today told nursing staff they are worth as little as £2 extra a day, less than the price of a cup of coffee.”

School teachers are angry to be told by the Department for Education that a 2.8 per cent rise “would be appropriate and maintain the competitiveness of teachers’ pay.” National Education Union general secretary Daniel Kebede countered that a “sky high workload and real term pay cuts has resulted in a devastating recruitment and retention crisis within teaching.”

Damaging

He added that “Teacher pay has been cut by over a fifth in real terms since 2010, hitting teacher living standards and damaging the competitive position of teaching against other graduate professions.”

Making matters worse, the DfE confirmed that schools must fund any future pay awards out of existing budgets, and conceded that most would have to make “efficiency savings”.

Further cuts

The Association of School and College Leaders general secretary Pepe Di’Iasio responded, “Given that per-pupil funding will increase on average by less than 1 per cent next year, it is obvious that this award is in fact an announcement of further school cuts.”

This applies across the public sector. The Treasury is making no new funding available to the pay review bodies. In the name of repairing the damage inflicted by the previous government, it is handing out the same medicine.

‘Pay awards were forced by strikes and other action.’

Unions representing public sector workers are gearing up for a fight. They know that the pay awards secured over the last two years were forced from government with millions of workers involved in protracted strikes and other forms of action, not trusting the pay review bodies.

And this action was largely with public support. A whole new generation of unionists has recent memory of how powerful they can be when they choose.