TUC chief accuses Government of piling debt burden onto poorest

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber accused the Government of unfairly “hammering” millions of low and medium-paid public sector workers by piling the burden of reducing the country’s debts onto them.

He told a rally in Exeter that public workers who had already endured two years of pay freezes were being targeted while those he said were the cause of the financial crisis were getting away “scot free”.

He also criticised Labour for a lack of support in not speaking up strongly enough in defence of the current pension plans agreed when they were in government.

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As a wave of strikes by the National Union of Teachers, Association of Teachers and Lecturers, University and College Union and Public and Commercial Services union swept the country, he told the 500-strong crowd at the Exeter Corn Exchange that they had every right to go on strike.

“When unfairness is piled on injustice you are right to take a stand,” Mr Barber said.

“The brutal truth is simply this, that the living standards of low and medium-paid public sector workers are being hammered in the name of reducing the deficit.

“As the cuts begin to scythe through our public services more, and more jobs are under threat, and as the pay freeze bites – while inflation roars ahead – real wage cuts are making it ever harder to make ends meet.

“And now on top of that they are coming for your pensions.

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“Meanwhile those who caused the crisis are getting off scot free. Let’s be clear, the real villains today are not the teachers and civil servants, they are the greedy City traders and bankers who got us in this mess.”

He added: “Let us be clear, if this attack on decent public service pensions succeeds that won’t help people in the private sector one iota. In a race to the bottom we are all losers.”

Speaking after his speech Mr Barber said he “regretted” any inconvenience caused by the strikes but reiterated the unions’ right to walk out in protest at the coalition’s plans.

And he called on the Government to show commitment to “genuine negotiation, not changes by diktat”.

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He also said that the Labour opposition should be making more noise on behalf of the current agreement for public sector pensions that the coalition is seeking to change.

“The last Labour government did negotiate with us only four or five years ago a sustainable, affordable and fair settlement that recognised that if life expectancy changed, if people live longer, people may have to pay more. We accepted that principle in the settlement that was agreed then,” he said.

“I think maybe Labour should be speaking up a little more powerfully to explain that that settlement was a sensible fair-minded settlement and it is not justified to open it up in the way that the Government is seeking to do.”

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