Call For British Workers To Receive A Pay Increase

Record low pay and rising insecure employment are blighting economic recovery, despite the apparent fall in unemployment, Unite the union said today.

Unite repeated its call for Britain's workers to receive a pay rise to generate economic activity, make workers and their families more secure and to lift thousands out of reliance on benefits.

Unite general secretary Len McCluskey said: "The British economy is in a Jekyll and Hyde situation.

"While the fall in the jobless total of 132,000 is welcome, we have to ask what sort of jobs have those people entered? The situation is compounded by the fact that more and more people are being driven into so-called self-employment in a desperate bid to get off benefits and find work.

"Self-employment is not the economic panacea that ministers crow about; it forces workers into a state without rights and with wage insecurity, and we are increasingly encountering people forced into 'self-employment' by employers who want to swerve their responsibilities.

"At the same time, the wage siege continues. If you strip out bonuses, wage rises are struggling along the bottom at a record low of 0.6 per cent which is hobbling the recovery in the UK economy. If self-employment earnings figures were included it would look even worse as the Resolution Foundation has shown.

"With George Osborne borrowing way beyond what he promised the nation, his mindless austerity policies are costing this nation and its people dear. This is no longer about reducing the deficit; it is about the systematic lowering of the living standards of ordinary people.

"Millions of people feel insecure in their jobs. Hundreds of thousands of our young people are languishing on the dole or press-ganged into workfare.

"Inflation is still running at 1.9 per cent – more than three times the rate of earnings. The case is clear that Britain’s workers need a pay rise – and this can be well-afforded by the companies which are sitting on a cash mountain of reserves."

(CD/MH)