Paul Holmes, rank and file candidate for the post of Unison General Secretary, has slammed the proposal for a pay rise for MPs. This is the text of his press statement today:
Candidate for general secretary of UNISON, Paul Holmes, has today called out the government for taking a 4.1% pay rise at a time that health and social care workers dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic have had their pay rises knocked back.
MPs are set to get a 4.1% pay rise of £3,360 next year, taking their basic pay from £81,932 to £85,292.
This at a time when the government:
* has insisted that they will not make an offer on the NHS workers’ pay claim;
* when parliament last week voted through an arbitrary ‘cap’ on exit/redundancy payments in the public sector
* when last week the government also announced consultations aimed at cutting pension provision for those made compulsorily redundant in local government, which would give tens of thousands of workers the choice of smaller or later pensions, or no or a smaller compulsory redundancy payment.
With the current vogue for ‘fire & re-hire’ actions by employers (see recent examples of British Gas, University of Sheffield, Tower Hamlets council) where employees can be sacked at three months’ notice without redundancy payments if they don’t accept cuts to their terms and conditions, these are worrying times for workers.
Paul Holmes said, “the government is preparing for a tsunami of attacks on workers, whilst themselves taking a £65 a week pay rise next year. What do they think that tired, exploited and frightened health and social care staff think about the MPs pay rise?”
“the government is completely out of touch with ordinary working people. They are more interested in awarding untendered contracts to private businesses in the City than in the welfare of the public. This cannot continue. The public mood is changing from fear and bewilderment to one of anger and they will expect all politicians to declare ‘which side’ they are on in the coming months.”
October 15, 2020
