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Thousands attend pay protest marches
18 October 2014
Last updated at 14:38
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The BBC’s John Moylan reports on the protests in central London
Tens of thousands of people are taking part in protest marches in cities across the UK calling for pay increases for public sector workers.
The “massive turnout” will send a strong message to the government, the Trades Union Congress (TUC) general secretary Frances O’Grady has said.
Workers are protesting about a below-inflation 1% pay offer – which the government says will safeguard jobs.
The TUC-organised rallies are being held in London, Glasgow and Belfast.
Continue reading the main story
People are currently facing the biggest squeeze on their incomes since Victorian times”
End Quote
Paul Kenny
GMB union general secretary
Public sector workers including teachers, nurses, civil servants and hospital workers are among those taking part in the protests, alongside rail and postal workers and others from private firms.
The marches follow public sector strikes earlier this week.
The TUC, which organised the protests under the slogan “Britain Needs a Pay Rise”, said between 80,000 and 90,000 people were taking part in the London march. There has been no independent confirmation of this.
Dave Prentis, general secretary of the Unison union, said the “best thing” the government could do was “recognise the value of the masses of people here today who have suffered and give them a pay rise”.
“Our members didn’t cause this recession, our members didn’t cause the failures of the banks,” he said.
The TUC says average wages have fallen by £50 a week in real terms since 2008.
The union’s general secretary Ms O’Grady said: “Our message is that after the longest and deepest pay squeeze in recorded history, it’s time to end the lock-out that has kept the vast majority from sharing in the economic recovery.”
Len McCluskey, general secretary of the Unite union, said Labour should support workers by offering a “clear socialist alternative” to the Conservatives at the next election.
“I say to Labour – stop being scared of your own shadow. Don’t shrink what you offer the British people,” he said.
Protests are being held in London (pictured here), Glasgow and Belfast
The marches follow strikes by health workers this week over a below-inflation pay offer
The protests have been organised by the TUC under the slogan “Britain Needs a Pay Rise”
Ms O’Grady said top directors were being awarded 175 times more than the average worker, while five million people were earning less than the living wage.
“If politicians wonder why so many feel excluded from the democratic process, they should start with bread and butter living standards,” she said.
GMB union general secretary Paul Kenny said members’ living standards were still falling.
“People are currently facing the biggest squeeze on their incomes since Victorian times, and wages have fallen in real terms every year since 2010,” he said.
Case study: ‘My lifestyle is pressured’
Mick Bowman, 56, is a mental health social worker for Northumberland County Council who lives in Newcastle and is taking part in the march in London.
“I’ve not had a pay rise for four years so with the cost of living rising, that’s a very substantial pay cut,” he said.
“At the same time my workload has increased and my job’s become more stressful.
“At the end of every pay month I have to use my credit card to live on. I last had a holiday three years ago. So my lifestyle is pressured.
“I feel extremely angry about this. The national deficit was manageable and the way to deal with it is not to cut jobs and shrink the public sector.
“It’s time to invest more in the public sector and get people into a position where they are able to spend more and put more money into the tax system.”
The marches come after industrial action by health workers on Monday – the first strike over pay in the NHS since the 1980s and the first time midwives had ever taken action.
Hospital radiographers and prison officers will strike in the coming week as part of the same dispute.
Cathy Warwick, the chief executive of the Royal College of Midwives, said the response from members showed the “depth of feeling” over the issue.
The government says pay restraint has safeguarded public sector jobs and services
The economy is “on the road to recovery” but the recession’s effects are “still being felt”, the government says
Demonstrators in central London banged drums as they marched towards Hyde Park
Following a TUC attack on levels of boardroom pay on Friday, a government spokesman said: “Under this government we’ve seen the largest annual fall in unemployment, more people in work than ever before, and this year the first above-inflation rise in the national minimum wage since the recession.
“We appreciate that although we are now on the road to recovery, the effects of the recession are still being felt. This is why we have taken continued action to help people by cutting income tax and freezing fuel duty.
“We also want to restore the link between top pay and performance… we have introduced comprehensive reforms which give shareholders more power to hold companies to account over what they pay and why.”
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