The public sector has been demonised yet again. While profligate, reckless bankers ruined the Western economy, hard-working public sector workers are expected to pick up the tab - with their jobs. The state is too big, the Conservatives cry, while making no attempt to clarify what size the state should be; they expect their friends in private business to take over where the state leaves off. Naturally, the bill will ultimately arrive at the pockets of the taxpayer.
It has become clear that the police will also be cut back. Agreements to keep the police on our streets and accountable have been scrapped.
Public sector pensions have also been targeted. Nick Clegg, Deputy PM referred to "gold-plated and unaffordable pensions". Once again, the public sector has been deliberately misidentified as causing the current economic crisis, and this myth has been broadcast at full volume by the Daily Mail and the Daily Express. The Confederation of British Industry claimed public sector pensions had created a "black hole" in public finances. UNISON's Dave Prentis, however, has refuted this myth as "alarmist and wrong," stating that public sector pension schemes "have already been through a comprehensive review. They are affordable and sustainable in the long term. The retirement age for most public sector workers is 65, and, far from being gold-plated the average woman working in local government can expect just £2600 a year, or £40 a week when they retire... The CBI needs to look in its own backyard, " he continued, "it should turn its firepower on the boardroom bosses who award themselves huge pensions and low retirement ages, but close their pension schemes to staff."
The Institute for Fiscal Studies' April report demonstrated that throughout the 1990s, pay awards were higher in the private sector and from 1997 to 2001, the gap widened by a further 7%. There was what the IFS described as a "period of catch-up" between 2001-2005 but now, once again, the public sector faces job cuts and pay freezes.
Dave Prentis went on to highlight the fact that the real pensions scandal was the taxpayer is footing the bill for private sector workers whose employers have closed down their pension schemes, and that every year £10bn of taxpayers' money is spent subsidizing the private pensions of the top 1% who are paid more than £150,000 a year. TUC research published in "Decent Pensions for All" has shown that £2.50 is spent on private sector pensions for every £1 spent on public sector pensions.
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