Public service workers are taking action in a week when bankers’ bonuses are running at £4.5 billion, the government has announced another pay freeze and that a total of 710,000 public service jobs will go, UNISON general secretary Dave Prentis told the Radio 4 Today programme.
UNISON members don’t want to strike, he said. “It is very, very rare for UNISON to move to industrial action – most of our activists have never taken strike action. But when millions of public service workers – mostly women, mostly low-paid – will have a 3 per cent pay cut with not a penny going into their pensions – what else can they do?
“They are asked to work six, seven or eight years longer and then they get a worse pension. They are saying enough is enough.”