HUTTON REVIEW OF FAIR PAY UNISON REACTION
HUTTON REVIEW OF FAIR PAY UNISON REACTIONHUTTON REVIEW OF FAIR PAY UNISON REACTION
Commenting on the Hutton Fair Pay Review, Dave Prentis, General Secretary of UNISON, the UK¹s largest public sector union, said:
³By concentrating on the 20:1 pay ratio, that affects a miniscule 0.0001% of the public sector workforce, the report misses the elephant in the room, namely the scandal of low pay across the sector.
³The government likes to talk about fairness, but actions speak louder than words. Public spending cuts, plus the drive to privatise local services, is depressing wages, fragmenting the workforce and undermining moves towards
fairness.
³More than one million public sector workers earn less than £7 per hour.
Even more are struggling with heavy debt. Pressure on family budgets is increasing because of the double whammy of high inflation and the pay freeze across the public sector.
³Low pay hits families hard, and hits women, ethnic minorities, the disabled and the young hardest. Low-income families are more likely to have health problems, live in neighbourhoods with high crime rates, and have children that are facing educational failure.
³There is a welcome nod towards making pay in the private sector more transparent. It is here that the real pay gap is most obvious. The boardroom bosses who award themselves massive pay rises and bonuses, at the same time as denying workers a fair deal and a decent pension.²
In its evidence to the Hutton Review, UNISON says that the main reason why some public sector bosses are getting pay hikes, is because senior managers have been taken out of national bargaining, so they can award themselves bigger rises, whilst those at the bottom are hit by the Government¹s pay freeze.
In addition, more than 40 years after the Equal Pay Act, many public sector workers are still waiting for equal pay. The union claims that splitting the workforce off by privatising services is standing in the way of delivering a rate for the job. The union is calling for rigorous job evaluation and transparent pay and for grading structures to be truly fair, and said that it had many years of experience working with government and employers to deliver just that.
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