In years to come I will remember two dates.
The first is the TUC March for the Alternative, 26 March when half a million people demonstrated against the coalition government’s austerity measures. The second date is last week’s TUC Day of Action, 30 November.
Many people demonstrated for the first time in March and likewise I met and spoke to many trade union members new to strike action on the 30th.
Cabinet minister Frances Maude dubbed strikers “stupid and wrong”, never mind that he will retire on a pension of £43,000 compared with the median across the public sector of £5,600.
Unlike teaching assistants, community nurses and paramedics Maude has a millionaire’s fortune as a backup – no wonder he and other millionaire ministers are so detached from the reality of the majority.
Not content with a smash and grab on public sector pensions the Chancellor has announced - on top of the pay freeze from 2012 - that pay increases will be capped at no more than one per cent. If all that wasn’t bad enough it is clear the government plans to break up national pay and collective agreements across the public sector.
To sum up: economic growth is flat lining; the Governor of the Bank of England is warning of a double dip recession; one million young people are unemployed with joblessness among women at a high not seen since 1988. And apparently it is all the fault of people who work to provide public services.
On the other hand top bosses awarded themselves pay rises last year that averaged out at 50 per cent. Pay ratios, the gap between the top and lowest paid in the private sector is out of control.
Yet the reason given for the proposed break up of national agreements is that public sector workers' national rates are a barrier to private sector recruitment and therefore “inward investment”. Put bluntly companies refuse to invest unless guaranteed cheap labour.
Maude had another brainwave: he exhorted parents to take their children to work to get round school closures again showing detachment from reality.
Bus drivers, bank and shop workers, construction and engineering are hardly child-friendly environments. Only days later the Chancellor froze working family child tax credit that will seriously jeopardise the delicate financial balance many families are struggling with. No let up on 20 per cent VAT, nothing to control energy and fuel costs.
This government is out of touch and out of control. We deserve better.
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