Clear and present danger of anger

THERE are many critics of the UK Government’s austerity policies but public sector workers who have endured first a pay freeze and now a pay cap will feel unique frustration.

It is one thing to feel anger at the impact of sustained belt-tightening on public services. It is quite another to be the victim of what you consider a real-terms pay cut.

As we approach the 10th anniversary of the 2008 banking crisis many people will feel that they – not wealthy but irresponsible financiers – have picked up the bill for this scandal. This sense of injustice is a potent political force.

It may have fuelled the much stronger than expected levels of support for Jeremy Corbyn in the June election. And the present weakness of Theresa May’s Government may make public sector workers and their unions conclude that now is the time to push for an abandonment of the cap.

Here is a chance, many people may decide, to push not just for a wrong to be righted but to get cash flowing back into households across Wales. Is there a community in this poverty-blighted country that would not benefit from a little more affluence?

This may seem like an act of selfdefence as fear of a hike in inflation swirls around the country. The wages of many jobs in both the public and private sectors has stagnated and escalating prices could make it even harder for many families to stay in the black.

The reported decision to axe the cap for police and prison officers will only stiffen the resolve of other workers to push for a change in policy.

Tina Donnelly, director of the Royal College of Nursing in Wales, told us: “We have not stipulated a certain amount but we do expect the Government to start lifting that cap. If they refuse then we will back to our membership and look to see whether industrial action is on the cards because enough’s enough for nursing.”

There is often strong public sympathy for nurses when they take action. They perform the definition of a vital task and there are men and women across the UK who owe their lives to nurses’ skill and vigilance.

But nurses and the people who depend on their expertise will hope that strikes can be avoided. They deserve fair pay that recognises their contribution and allows the NHS to recruit and retain brilliant individuals; it is a sign of a failure of government if they have to reach for a form of leverage which should be a last resort.

Politicians should not overlook the plight of private sector workers, where people also have good reason to feel less prosperous. Repeated studies have highlighted the glacial pace of wage recovery and the reality of in-work poverty.

A man in full-time employment in the public sector in Wales last year had an average income of £31,719. The figure for a woman working full-time in the private sector was just £18,965.

Wales needs the skills and the jobs which attract higher pay. Workers should not be pitted against one another for all of us deserve economic justice. The Western Mail newspaper is published by Media Wales a subsidiary company of Trinity Mirror PLC, which is a member of IPSO, the Independent Press Standards Organisation. The entire contents of The Western Mail are the copyright of Media Wales Ltd. It is an offence to copy any of its contents in any way without the company’s permission. If you require a licence to copy parts of it in any way or form, write to the Head of Finance at Six Park Street. The recycled paper content of UK newspapers in 2016 was 62.8%