For CSR read: cuts strangle recovery warns UNISON
George Osborne has condemned the country to decades of hardship and the
people to unnecessary wholesale unemployment, with his “ideologically
driven, no hope, no ideas, cuts CSR” warned UNISON, the UK’s largest public
service union. The government has failed to consider that there is a fairer
alternative.
The union says that the 500,000 public sector job cuts will prove a false
economy and will cost the private sector a further 425,000 jobs. They could
cost the Treasury around £4.6bn in lost tax revenue and £6.1bn in increased
benefit payments - adding £10.7bn a year to the annual deficit and almost
entirely canceling out the apparent £12.5bn saving to the public sector
pay-bill.
Tens of thousands of jobs have already been cut in local government it
cannot afford to lose any more without hitting front-line services.
The economy is also likely to be bitten by the negative impact of taking
public sector workers’ spending power out of local economies and by the
damage done to economic and social recovery from reduced public service
provision.
Following the Chancellor’s Comprehensive Spending Review, Dave Prentis,
General Secretary of UNISON, said:
“For CSR read Cuts Strangle Recovery. The Tories’ ideologically driven, no
hope, no ideas, cuts agenda is poisoning the country’s chances of recovery,
infecting the public sector and costing 425,000 jobs in the private sector.
“The much-trailed cuts come as no great surprise, but the scale is a
devastating blow to workers and their families whose jobs are in the firing
line.
“The Chancellor has tunnel vision, there are realistic alternatives that
will get the country back on its feet. And make no mistake, there is no way
that frontline services will escape his heavy-handed tactics.“
