GMB national officer Sharon Holder yesterday called for ‘a coordinated effort organised by the TUC to defend public services and jobs.’
She was responding to news that cabinet ministers have been ordered by the Treasury to plan for cuts of 40 per cent in their departmental budgets.
In addition, all departments have been told to show how they can slash day-to-day administration costs, excluding salaries, by between 33 per cent and 50 per cent.
RMT transport union leader Bob Crow has already called for a general strike over the previously announced 25 per cent cuts.
Holder added to News Line: ‘The coalition government’s plans for a 40 per cent cut would decimate public services and jobs.
‘If fully implemented, this could see the end of public services as we know them.
‘Public sector unions will no doubt mount a vigorous campaign against this level of cuts.’
Public and Commercial Services union general secretary Mark Serwotka said there was ‘no economic case to put people on the dole queue’.
He warned: ‘We are already drawing up plans with other public sector unions to ensure that if the government attacks our pensions, our jobs and public services, they will face resistance the like of which we haven’t seen in this country for decades.
‘We will see not just co-ordinated industrial action by unions but campaigns in every community.’
A Unison spokeswoman told News Line: ‘This level of cuts will have a devastating effect on public services.’
Commenting on calls by senior Tories to end NHS ‘ring-fencing’ and for cuts on top of the £20bn NHS ‘efficiency savings’ already being demanded this year, she added: ‘There is no way you could run the NHS and give patients the care they need with these levels of cuts.
‘Our general secretary Dave Prentis has said he will look at building alliances with other unions and community organisations.
‘Where our members want to take industrial action over job cuts and cuts in services, we will back them to the hilt.’
The cuts demand from the Liberal Democrat chief secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander, was sent to cabinet colleagues over the weekend.
Education and defence are required to make between ten and 20 per cent cuts, while the only departments not included in the Treasury demand are health and international development, which have been ‘ring-fenced’ for the current parliament.
Transport Secretary Phillip Hammond yesterday confirmed on the Andrew Marr Show: ‘We are going to look at the priorities of the coalition.
‘We are going to look at the individual impacts on departments – and that’s why departments are being asked to prepare not only a 25 per cent case but also a 40 per cent case.’
He said departments will be asked to ‘present the case for individual lines of expenditure in that range, between 25 and 40, and then we can look collectively at where our priorities lie, where that marginal pound of spending that is available should be directed.’
