LONDON: British unions voted yesterday to back a campaign of coordinated strike action against a public sector pay cap imposed by the coalition government.
At the Trades Unions Congress conference in Bournemouth, unions backed a motion calling for “support for necessary industrial action, co-ordinated across sectors where possible” to end the pay cap.
In March, Chancellor George Osborne that announced a freeze on public sector wage rises, limiting increases to an average of 1 percent, would be extended until 2015-16.
A series of union leaders spoke out against the pay freezes, falling wages and the general impact of the government’s austerity programme yesterday, as Osborne announced Britain’s economy had turned a corner and was recovering.
Thousands of public sector workers staged a coordinated walkout in a protest over pension reforms in December 2011.
reuters
