Shadow chancellor Ed Balls provoked the fury of the unions at the Labour Party Conference in Manchester yesterday with his refusal to pledge a future Labour government to end the public sector pay freeze.
Having been booed by delegates at the TUC Conference in Brighton last month, Balls proceeded to deliver the same message again: ‘Hard times are going to last longer than any of us hoped.
‘We can’t promise to put everything right straightaway, which is why however difficult this is, when we don’t know what we will inherit, we can’t make any commitments now that the Labour government will be able to reverse particular tax rises or spending cuts,’ Balls declared.
‘What he’s saying is, pay freezes will continue under Labour,’ responded PCS General Secretary Mark Serwotka.
‘He’s giving us the false choice of jobs or pay rises when the reality is we’re getting tens of thousands of job cuts and still getting pay freezes.’
He added: ‘The real resentment is that when people tried to make a point about it, Ed Miliband told them off for going on strike, and that’s why I think we’ve seen such seething unhappiness today.’
Paul Kenny, GMB General Secretary, said: ‘Public sector workers have not had a pay rise for three years while inflation has been high.’
He added: ‘Public and private sector workers did not make the bankers recession. They should not be made to pay for it.’
Unite General Secretary Len McCluskey said: ‘A public spending squeeze while the City continues to let rip is simply not acceptable.
‘Asking the poorest to bear the sacrifices for a crisis that they did not cause is the road to political ruin and defeat at the General Election’.
Unison General Secretary Dave Prentis said of the pay freeze: ‘It’s wrong, it’s wrong morally and it’s wrong economically. People need fair pay, people need decent pay.
‘The people they’re talking about are mainly women and they are the ones who are suffering the price of a recession because of the failure of the banking industry and the powerful in our society.’
RMT General Secretary Bob Crow said: ‘Millions of workers have had their pay frozen for years now and have seen their real standards of living decrease by 16% while boardroom pay has gone through the roof.
‘You would have thought that the Labour Party might do something to side with those taking a battering and against those dealing it out but you would be wrong.
‘Labour and the government are now positioned like Tweedledum and Tweedledee, whichever one you vote for you end up with the same kick in the teeth for the very people that make this country tick and that is a disgrace.
‘Who are those nurses, teachers and public service staff going to vote for now that Labour has made it clear they have abandoned them?
‘The case for a political party rooted in the trade unions and with a clear socialist agenda is now overwhelming as Ed Miliband and Ed Balls signal their desertion of the working class and their adoption of the pro-business, pro-EU and pro-austerity programme.’
