Sep 10 2007
Gordon Brown and the Unions
The pictures of the TUC meeting told a strange story.
Gordon Brown stressed his Union background, explained how much he agreed with their aims, and offered them public support for more jobs.
They sat in silence, brandishing cards demanding a better pay deal for public sector employees.
It reminded us all how much the Trade Union movement is now dominated by public sector employees, and what a mess Gordon and his colleagues have made of handling their pay.
The public sector has enjoyed a big increase in recruitment - not matched by a similar increase in productivity - and has experienced good pay rises in the period 2001-2006. The pay rises for the medical staff were especially good as NHS budgets benefitted from big increases in spending.
The government now realises it overdid it, and did not ask for the "reform" (higher productivity) they always said they were seeking when putting all the extra money in in such a hurry. They are trying to rein it back in, by having pay increases this year below inflation.
Its been a dreadful way of running things. There was insufficient gain from all the extra pay in earlier years - public sector employees took the view it was their desert - and now there is real anger they are expected to take a reduction in real pay when compared to the RPI - although not compared to the CPI.
What we need is a way of rewarding the public sector that generates better service at lower cost. The best way out of his boom and bust approach to public sector pay for the Prime Minister would be to negotiate proper productivity/qualitty deals, so employees get something for something. The present approach creates misery, and a desultory run of public sector strikes to make the taxpayer suffer even more.
John Redwood has been the Member of Parliament for Wokingham since 1987. First attending Kent College, Canterbury, he graduated from Magdalen College...
You regularly raise important issues in a thoughtful and constructive way but I fear you are wasting your time when Cameron is publicly supporting charging for parking at supermarkets and introducing a Happy Planet Index!! The man seems determined to ensure that this disastrous man Brown and his cronies stay in power forever.
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John, I remember you saying to watch for wages. You were dead right. Gordon Brown is now in a jam because he has not thought this through. Yet another Brown blunder. As you say pay should be related to productivity and performance. This situation demonstrates that the plastic chancellor now premier is not quite the economic guru that pretends to be.
If Gordon Brown wants to earn some credibility he should begin by retracting his ridiculous claims that we are heading for full employment. I seem to remember Gordon Brown and Tony Blair speaking about how we were “On the verge of full employment” back in 1999 during the Labour party conference. Politicians need to be honest with the public and stop making unrealistic promises. Gordon Brown is treating us with utter contempt.
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The Labour government only seems to worship money. If I ran a union, I would not suggest members take strike action with all the bad press that it generates and loss of pay, but I would suggest that the Union stops funding Labour until they put the workers needs at the same level as the needs of the bosses of big business.
I have never been a Union supporter and indeed cheered when our Maggie sorted them out during the early Eighties, however I believe that too many dodgy company bosses are taking advantage of the situation and keeping shop floor workers’ pay too low. Especially using imported workers that can afford to work for much less. How could one afford to live on the Labours flagship National Minimum Wage in Wokingham for example? Brown would say take the job and the state will make the money up…Is this not the state funding dodgy companies?
Many bosses seem to believe that as long as they pay the minimum wage, the job is a good one. Paying the minimum wage actually sayes to the worker, you are worth next to nothing and I begrudge paying you this amount and if I could get away with it I would pay you even less. I firmly believe the National Minimum Wage artificially keeps pay down.
I agree that public service workers need to have some sort of productivity deal attached to their earnings. I also think that government should accept their own review body’s finding and pay the money to the workforce. Percentage pay rises do not really help the lower paid staff as fifty percent of nothing is still nothing whereas three percent of a fat cat’s salary is a substantial sum.
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