Local Pay will depress economy further

UNISON, the UK’s largest union, is today warning that Chancellor George Osborne needs a reality check as he will be taking the country in totally the wrong direction if he pursues plans for local pay scales in his Budget on Wednesday.Dave Prentis, General Secretary of UNISON, said:“If the Chancellor wants to stimulate economic recovery in his Budget, local pay bargaining is not the way to do it. It will take the country in totally the wrong direction. Local pay pushes depressed areas further into depression by cutting off spending in local businesses. “It took four years to negotiate Agenda for Change in the NHS which successfully established equal pay and pay linked to training. If the Chancellor plans to break it all up, we will have the sorry sight of hospitals competing against each other to recruit and retain staff.“In the NHS nurses, paramedics, therapists and midwives are among the workers suffering for a second year without any increase in pay, to compensate for rising costs. The dismantling of Agenda for Change would be the Government’s final nail in the coffin of our NHS. “Local Government workers already face a third year without a pay rise and cutting pay further, will take many more families onto the breadline and onto benefits, with taxpayers picking up the bill.“The Chancellor would risk plunging the whole of the public sector back into a recruitment crisis if pay is depressed any further. There is a whole raft of jobs where pay in the private sector is considerably higher. “It is clear that Osborne has either run out of ideas, or simply does not understand the dynamics of the labour market. The idea of local pay has been dumped as old fashioned by most big companies, with the exception of a few supermarket chains. “The Budget should be used to stimulate the whole of the economy, not depress parts of the country further.”