Cheers greeted Welsh first minister Carwyn Jones as he told UNISON’s Labour Link forum in Cardiff: “Welcome to Wales – where we have a labour government!’
He condemned regional pay, noting: “They’re saying in Wales public sector pay should go down by 20% – they’re now talking about regional benefits.
“But we know things cost the same wherever you are, sometimes they cost more in rural areas.”
He said it was “the most dangerous thing we’ve heard from the Tories.” And he promised that “we’ll resist it in Wales and stand in solidarity with others.
“We’ll say ‘a fair day’’s pay for a fair day’s work’ regardless of where you live.”
The Welsh Labour government was providing an alternative to the Tory cuts he said. It had rejected privatisation in the NHS and rejected GP commissioning.
And he vowed that it would “keep on fighting to make sure this country isn’t forced back to the 1930s”.
He rejected the Tories’ “false idea that life is about a fight between businesses on one hand and public sector on the other. We know, in fact, the two work in harmony together. Businesses rely on healthy workforces that the NHS provides, they rely on educated workers, from the public sector.
“The reality is there is only one sector, and that’s society. Wherever you work, in a Ford factory in Bridgend or Bridgend County Council, people want the same thing” – a decent job and fair pay.
Labour in Wales was showing that there was a real alternative. “In 2011, we did pretty well, in 2012 we did very well, and that shows if you offer people the right policies they will come out and vote.”
Mr Jones praised the newly elected Labour Cardiff council announcement this week that all employees will have a living wage.
But he also said that contractors needed to offer a living wage. Otherwise they could undercut public service providers – and there would be even more privatisation.
Despite Labour’s achievements in Wales he said there was a limit to what in could achieve if Labour were not in power in the UK and Scotland. “We have to win the general election in 2015. We have to win the elections in Scotland and Wales in 2016.
“There are people out there who will suffer if we don’t – and comrades we dare not let them down.”