DIVIDE AND RULE
Unions warn May will offer to lift 1% pay cap for only some workers
THERESA May will try to “divide and rule” public sector workers by offering to lift the one per cent pay cap for only some of them, union leaders warned yesterday.
Trade unionists gathering in Brighton for the TUC’s annual conference have raised fears that the Tory Government will this week announce bigger pay rises for police and prison officers while keeping the cap for others such as civil servants.
The warnings came as unions reacted angrily to reports that teachers in Scotland will be offered a pay rise of just 1.5 per cent next year.
Mark Serwotka, leader of the PCS civil service union, said: “I think there will be a spectacular attempt to divide and rule.
“The Conservative Government will give a limited pay rise to some of the uniformed public sector workers and leave others behind.”
He added: “Nurses deserve a pay rise, but so do the porters and cleaners.
“Teachers deserve a pay rise, but so do the school caretakers.”
“There is no such thing as deserving workers and undeserving workers. It is a team effort from front to back – we all deserve a pay rise.”
The PCS are balloting their 160,000 members across the UK for industrial action if the pay cap isn’t lifted.
Nicola Sturgeon last week announced that the cap, imposed by the Tories in 2013 after a two-year pay freeze, would be scrapped in Scotland next year.
But Lynn Henderson, PCS national officer for Scotland, said reports that teachers would be offered only 1.5 per cent were worrying.
She said: “A 1.5 per cent pay rise is still below inflation. We need a pay rise greater than five per cent in 2018 just to catch up.”