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The Trades Union Congress is expected to press Britain’s new Labour government for “pay restoration” to make up for a decade of public sector real-terms salary cuts.
The demand adds to strains between Labour and its union backers after a series of pay deals between Sir Keir Starmer’s administration and striking workers in sectors ranging from healthcare to rail.
Matt Wrack, head of the Fire Brigades Union — who currently holds the revolving presidency of the TUC — told the FT he expected delegates at next month’s annual meeting of the umbrella group to back a demand for broader above-inflation pay rises.
The motion, championed by the PCS union, which represents nearly 200,000 public sector workers, says pay levels have fallen by an average of 1.5 per cent per year since 2011.
It calls for “pay restoration in the public sector” to be “a key feature of our campaigning with the new government”.
Labour has close links to the unions, which founded the political party over a century ago to represent workers. But demands for higher pay would clash with ministers’ attempts to keep a grip on Britain’s straitened public finances.
Economists estimate that each 1 percentage point rise in the public sector pay bill would cost about £2.5bn to taxpayers.
To restore public sector pay to the same level as 2011 in real terms would theoretically require an increase of 21 per cent — or over £50bn.
But the PCS said it was not advocating a particular figure, since pay rises could vary across different civil service grades.
“We think the government should invest in pay to put living standards where they should be,” the union said. “We are not going to put a figure on it.”
A TUC spokesman said the body would not formally comment on the text.
While the PCS, led by Fran Heathcote, is one of Britain’s more left-wing unions, last year the TUC backed three separate motions calling for pay restoration including one backing an “index-linked pay restoration guarantee for public servants”.
The call was ignored by the Conservative administration along with many other TUC requests over the last 14 years.
However the influence of the union movement has grown following the election of Starmer’s government in June and Labour’s approach to industrial relations is likely to prove one of its biggest early challenges.
Under the previous Conservative government Britain was hit by waves of industrial unrest, after the highest inflation in a generation eroded real wages at a time of tight public finances.
The issue of “pay restoration” was at the heart of the bitter dispute by junior doctors which led to 11 strikes over 18 months.
The doctors, represented by the British Medical Association, wanted pay rises of up to 35 per cent to make up for their below-inflation salary increases over the last 15 years.
The BMA is currently balloting its members after the government offered a pay deal of 22 per cent over two years.
Meanwhile GPs in England started industrial action this month.
And the government this month offered train drivers in England a pay rise of more than 14 per cent over three years in a deal with rail union Aslef.
But Aslef has since announced a series of weekend strikes on the UK’s east coast mainline in a fresh dispute over “a breakdown in industrial relations”.
Emily Foster is a globe-trotting journalist based in the UK. Her articles offer readers a global perspective on international events, exploring complex geopolitical issues and providing a nuanced view of the world’s most pressing challenges.
