Unions demand a 5pc rise from SNP
...and, yes, middle classes will have to foot the bill
UNION bosses are to demand £750 million from Nicola Sturgeon to fund a 5 per cent pay rise for public sector workers.
The Scottish Mail on Sunday understands any failure to cough up could trigger widespread strike action.
The First Minister will unveil a tax discussion paper this week, having repeatedly hinted at a punishing hike in taxes for middleclass Scots – telling the SNP conference that ‘a fair society must be paid for’.
Already Miss Sturgeon has announced she will scrap the existing 1 per cent cap on public sector pay rises. Now unions believe that any tax hike imposed by the SNP should be used to give workers across the state sector a boost in wages.
The Scottish Mail on Sunday last week spoke to several unions who all had similar plans. They want a pay rise for members that both meets the increased cost of living – the RPI measure of inflation is set to hit 4 per cent – and compensates them for six years of low pay.
Most put the pay claim at between 4 and 5 per cent.
There are 485,200 public sector workers north of the Border, not including those employed by the UK Government, and they earn an average of £30,825. A 5 per cent rise would cost £747.8 million – before other costs such as pensions are taken into account.
Yesterday Pat Rafferty, Scottish secretary of Unite, told the union’s Aviemore conference: ‘It is time to hold the First Minister to her word when she says she’s “putting her money where her mouth is”.
‘They need to make up for the years our public sector workers have been made to pay for the financial crisis they did not create.
‘If that is not forthcoming then we mobilise up and down this country. We take that fight onto the streets.’
Councils are not bound by the Scottish Government’s public pay policy but still take it into account. A spokesman for local authority umbrella body Cosla admitted there was ‘a rising level of expectation over pay’ with the cap lifting.
Some unions have indicated a failure to pay up could lead to strikes. Douglas Black, head of local government negotiations for the EIS teaching union, which has rejected a 1.5 per cent pay offer, said: ‘All public sector workers have suffered a decade of real-terms pay cuts. This is no way to treat hardworking people who keep us safe, healthy, educated and cared for.’
Joy Dunn, of the Public and Commercial Services union, said the pay cap should be above inflation: ‘If you have an RPI of 3.9 per cent, it has to be above that because people have endured austerity pay for over ten years.’
The Scottish Government refused to be drawn on this week’s tax discussion paper. A spokesman said: ‘We have made clear the 1 per cent public sector pay cap is unsustainable and will be brought to an end for those bodies covered by Scottish Government pay policy.’