Rishi Sunak needs an “exit strategy” from the ongoing industrial disputes to avoid them escalating in the coming months after he overestimated public support for his “1980s” approach to widespread strikes, the new general secretary has said of the TUC.
Paul Novak, who takes over as Britain’s top union leader next month, predicted the government’s “war of attrition” against the unions would fail and accused ministers of turning a “turned deaf ear” to the seriousness of the situation.
He called on the government to negotiate fair pay deals as he ruled out rewriting the powers of pay review bodies next year – which the government is understood to be considering – as a “starting point” for negotiations as public sector workers need more support to deal with the cost of living crisis in Britain now.
In an interview with the Guardian before starting his new role, he said: “The government will have to take responsibility. Society will clearly determine where the responsibility lies.
“Maybe they’ll try to push it to the spring and to the budget, but I just don’t think our members are going to sit quietly and wait for that to happen.” I don’t think promises of a sweet tomorrow will stop people.”
Novak’s intervention comes as the country faces another wave of strikes in the new year, with rail workers, nurses and ambulance workers expected to take more action, shutting down parts of the public sector. More strike days were lost in October than in a decade and strike action has intensified since then.
Downing Street insisted on Wednesday that there was no need for the Prime Minister to intervene personally in the issue and it was not for the Government to interfere in the pay negotiations.
A deputy spokesman for Rishi Sunak said: “What we cannot do is allow double-digit wage increases that will lead to inflation in the future… The Prime Minister wants to see employers and unions reach a fair deal. We believe that in terms of rail transport there is [offer] at the table that is there for the unions to come to an agreement.
The new TUC leader rejected the Prime Minister’s claim that the country could not afford a pay rise for public sector workers due to inflation, suggesting that business profits, dividends and City bonuses were instead responsible for the rise. Some unions have already indicated they could accept an improved pay deal below inflation.
“If you’re in the public service and you’re feeling squeezed, it seems the only solution offered by the government is to be expected to show a bit of pay restraint. You are the one who has to suffer. It doesn’t feel like it’s a burden fairly shared across the country,” he added.
The TUC is gearing up for a second battle with the government in early January as ministers prepare to push anti-strike legislation through parliament that would guarantee minimum levels of service on transport networks – and potentially other services – during strikes.
Novak warned that unions would be prepared to take legal action, all the way to the European Court of Human Rights, to guarantee workers’ right to strike. “We’re not ruling anything out, I think we’re ready to take it on politically and legally,” he said.
“For us, this is a potential case before the ECHR. We will leave no legal stone unturned. We will have to see what the actual proposals are, but I think there will be a real appetite among our unions to take on the government in the courtrooms.
The TUC chief said he believed there was “still more to look for”, urging ministers to sit down with union leaders and negotiate a fair deal. It should be “something that recognizes that there is a certain set of pressures on people right now,” he added, pointing to private sector firms that have offered lump sum payments, renewed wage negotiations and led to pay rises.
But he ruled out the government focusing on simply changing the powers of pay review bodies next year, as ministers have hinted they might do, as it failed to respond to the urgency of the situation. And he criticized them for “hiding behind” bodies for this year’s below-inflation bids, despite the fact that they set the mission.
“I don’t think just looking at next year’s mandate would be an acceptable starting point. The reality is that our members in the public service are facing real pressures right now on their family incomes.
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“I don’t think our members can wait that long and I don’t think they will be prepared to sit idly by the budget and then any subsequent pay review process to try and secure a decent pay outcome.”
Novak suggested that Sunak, a millionaire, and his cabinet did not understand the pressures people were facing during the cost-of-living crisis. “I don’t think it’s just him. We have a cabinet of people who don’t rely on public services in the way that most people do. Do they send their children to public schools? Are they dependent on government hospitals? Wealth can protect you from many things.
Analysis by the TUC shows that UK workers have lost an average of £20,000 in real wages since 2008 due to pay not keeping up with inflation, which equates to £1,450 a year. The pay cuts are even worse for some, with nurses losing the equivalent of £42,000 or £3,000 a year and paramedics £56,000 or £4,000 a year.
Pay misery is ahead, with average earnings predicted to fall by £79 a month in real terms in 2023 and public sector wages by £100 a month – with pay levels not expected to recover to their level of 2008 to 2027
Novak defended the unions’ campaign for the national minimum wage, which is currently £9.50 and rises to £10.42 in April, to rise to £15 an hour as soon as possible as part of wages being increase everywhere. Novak said the proposal was “very realistic” after being told the target of reaching two-thirds of median income was too ambitious but would be reached by April 2024.
Recent polls show that more people blame the government than unions for the wave of strikes, with support for NHS staff particularly high. “They thought it was straight out of the ’80s playbook where they could drive a wedge between groups of working people,” Novak said.
“They have overestimated the level of support they would have on this issue and that is part of the reason why they now have to think: What is our exit strategy?. Right now they have their hands over their ears, refusing to listen to what their own workforce, the civil servants, are telling them.
He defended rail unions despite falling public support for RMT action, accusing the government of “sabotaging” a deal by making driver-only trains an 11th-hour precondition of any deal when they would have been impossible to achieve under the life of existing franchises.
“It was deliberately provocative and, in my view, it was deliberately designed to undermine any potential settlements … There is no way that is possible and the government knows that,” he said.
The TUC has had “no contact” from Sunak or other senior ministers despite working together during the pandemic. “It seems a long way from being invited to bacon with Boris Johnson and his little dog. He did not learn, and the government did not learn, lessons about the value of working together to address a national crisis.
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