In a last minute bid to prevent strike action, health minister Jeremy Hunt has offered 40,000 junior doctors an 11% pay increase, days before the British Medical Association (BMA) ballot its members.
Junior doctors have taken to social media saying that this latest move is calculated and political. While the controversial negotiation continues, the rest of the public sector is, of course, still subject to the 1% pay cap imposed by the government earlier this year. According to the BBC, basic salary for junior doctors starts at about £23,000 but increases in the second year to about £28,000. The average starting salary for a graduate in the public sector is £23,750.
We asked public sector unions what workers thought of the pay offer.
‘We know what it’s like to face a government that refuses to negotiate’
A spokesperson for the 250,000-member Public and Commercial Services union said: “Since 2010, cuts to pay and pensions for civil and public servants have meant real incomes falling by up to 20%. We send our solidarity to junior doctors and the BMA because we know what it’s like to face a government that refuses to negotiate.”
‘Stop treating pay as a political football’
Garry Graham, deputy general secretary of Prospect, which has 30,000 public sector members, all subject to pay restraint, said the government should stop treating the pay of public sector workers as a political football. “Prospect continues to argue for a pay review body to oversee the pay of our public sector members to ensure their valuable work is recognised,” he said. “We need a strategic approach.”
Graham said the public would be confused by the claims and counter claims in relation to junior doctor pay, and ad hoc announcements. “The government should engage positively with trade unions, as opposed to seeking to negotiate through soundbites and media headlines,” he said.
He added that no private sector employer would see freezing pay for several years and then capping pay increases at 1% till 2020 as the route to success.
‘Public sector pay restraint is coming apart at the seams’
The FDA union, which represents 18,000 senior civil servants, said Hunt’s offer was further evidence that the government’s policy of pay restraint in the public sector was coming apart at the seams.
General secretary Dave Penman said that despite already delivering substantial efficiencies over the last five years, public servants are being asked once again for huge increases in productivity while being excluded from both the upturn in the economy and any share of the efficiencies they deliver. “Five more years of austerity on pay will only threaten the very public services the government says it is seeking to protect,” he said.
‘This calls into question the motives behind the trade union bill’
David Green, national officer for the Fire Brigades Union pointed out that the climbdown by the government had come after junior doctors had threatened industrial action. That, he said, calls into question the motives behind the trade union bill, which seeks to try to curb collective action on pay conditions.
He said the 44,000 members of his union were all subject to a 1% pay cap, which in real terms, meant pay cuts upon pay cuts, since it does not match the cost of living.
“The government mantra ever since the crisis is that public sector workers are being made to pay for the recklessness of the financial sector,” he said. “All we can expect from the government is more of the same: pay cuts, cuts to pensions, a reduction in the number of firefighters and staff working longer for less. It all points to a fire service which comprises of demotivated staff, forced to do more and more complex work for less and less reward.”
‘Will the government apply similar rises across the board?’
Steve White, chair of the Police Federation of England and Wales, which has 124,000 members, said: “Does that mean the government will scrap the 1% pay deal offered to the rest of the public sector and apply similar rises across the board?”. He added that police forces were already facing another round of “savage cuts” to their budgets, which if imposed will further erode staff morale and forces’ capability to fight crime.
White said forces had already lost 17,000 officers and a similar amount of police staff – equivalent to ten entire police forces – since 2010, according to Home Office figures. During that period, he said, the average real value of police constables’ pay had also reduced by nearly 11%, due to pay freezes and inflation. “We simply cannot afford to lose any more officers if we are to be able to properly protect the public. We need the government to recognise this and do all they can to ensure proper recruitment and retention across the police force.”
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