Public sector workers’ pay has dipped below that of their private sector counterparts for the first time since the financial crash of 2008, the GMB union reveal. Workers in public sector received hourly earnings of 0.6% less than their private counterparts.
The disparity is the result of seven years of austerity and cuts to public spending. Research suggests that when private sector wages outstrip those in the public sector, hospital fatality rates rise and schools’ GCSE results decline.
The GMB claimed the Treasury had repeatedly refused to release the information until it officially complained and threatened to refer the matter to the Information Commissioner’s Office. The chief secretary to the Treasury, Liz Truss, refused to release the updated analysis when challenged in parliament.
Rehana Azam, the GMB’s national secretary for public services, said the Treasury estimates “kicked away the last prop” behind the government’s policy of enforcing real-terms public sector pay cuts, and disproved Hammond’s reported claim in a July cabinet meeting that public sector workers are overpaid. Azam said: “It’s no wonder that ministers fought tooth and nail to cover up these damning figures. The Tories can never again claim that public sector workers are ‘overpaid’ when the Treasury’s own assessment proves otherwise.”
The chancellor maintains public sector workers are still better off than their private sector colleagues because they benefit from higher employer pension contributions. But the GMB said its analysis shows that they also pay in significantly more through employee contributions. Three in five public sector workers pay in at least 6% of earnings on average, compared with one in seven private sector workers.
The disparity is the result of seven years of austerity and cuts to public spending. Research suggests that when private sector wages outstrip those in the public sector, hospital fatality rates rise and schools’ GCSE results decline.
The GMB claimed the Treasury had repeatedly refused to release the information until it officially complained and threatened to refer the matter to the Information Commissioner’s Office. The chief secretary to the Treasury, Liz Truss, refused to release the updated analysis when challenged in parliament.
Rehana Azam, the GMB’s national secretary for public services, said the Treasury estimates “kicked away the last prop” behind the government’s policy of enforcing real-terms public sector pay cuts, and disproved Hammond’s reported claim in a July cabinet meeting that public sector workers are overpaid. Azam said: “It’s no wonder that ministers fought tooth and nail to cover up these damning figures. The Tories can never again claim that public sector workers are ‘overpaid’ when the Treasury’s own assessment proves otherwise.”
The chancellor maintains public sector workers are still better off than their private sector colleagues because they benefit from higher employer pension contributions. But the GMB said its analysis shows that they also pay in significantly more through employee contributions. Three in five public sector workers pay in at least 6% of earnings on average, compared with one in seven private sector workers.
Azam said: “The average local government worker earns about £20,000 while teaching assistants are paid just £12,000, and all public sector workers have lost thousands due to a planned decade of real-terms pay cuts. It’s shameful that in one of the world’s richest nations some of our public sector heroes are forced to take on debt or use food banks to make ends meet. Enough is enough. In the budget, the chancellor must announce the fully-funded, above-inflation pay rises that public sector workers need and so desperately deserve.”
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