Liberal Democrats leader Nick Clegg's pledge to increase public workers' pay by inflation over the next two years if his party gets back into power – and by more afterwards – has provoked ridicule from trade union leaders.
“Workers across the public sector have made enough sacrifices,” declared Britain’s deputy prime minister, who is facing a tough battle to get his voice heard during the election campaign.
“You have done your bit to help get the country back on track.”
Public wages were frozen in 2011 and 2012, and rose by 1 per cent in each of the past three years, which led to hundreds of thousands of workers joining a one-day protest across the United Kingdom last summer.
However, Clegg’s promise is relatively cost-free for the next two years, since inflation – which currently stands at zero, according to the Bank of England – is currently predicted to be 0.2 per cent and 1.2 per cent in 2015 and 2016.
Nurses
Nurses earning £25,000 a year will get a minimum rise of £350, Clegg promised, while police officers on £30,000 will get a minimum of £420, while teachers on £35,000 will get nearly £500.
Urging public sector workers to vote for his party, Clegg said the alternative option that they are facing is years of worry about Conservative cuts destroying their jobs, or concern about “Labour’s refusal to deal with the deficit”.
Dave Prentice, the leader of Britain’s biggest union Unison which has nearly 1.5 million members, said few could blame public sectors for “viewing these latest promises somewhat cynically” in the middle of an election campaign.
Austerity
“Public sector workers have paid a high price under austerity and the harsh economic policies imposed by a government of which the Liberal Democrats were part,” he said.
“With inflation currently flat-lining, it’s easy for [(HIM]to make pay promises.”
Meanwhile, Mark Serwotka, the general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services union, said: “This Damascene conversion on the eve of electoral humiliation, coming from the party that pledged not to increase tuition fees, will be seen for what it is.”
Highlighting the Liberal Democrats’ recent record, unions pointed to the chief secretary to the treasury Danny Alexander’s decision late last year to rule out a 1 per cent pay rise for 600,000 workers, because they had not agreed to reforms.
