Will Hutton has missed ‘a golden opportunity’ to inject a strong element of fairness into public sector pay, Unite, the largest union in the country, said Tuesday, March15 2011.
Unite said that the Hutton review on fair pay in the public sector was ‘hugely disappointing’ and would allow the ‘fat cat’ pay bonanza to continue, while thousands of low-paid public sector workers were losing their jobs and having their retirement pensions slashed.
Unite said that the proposals, such as the top 2,000 public sector bosses losing 10 per cent of their salaries if they failed to meet key objectives, were ‘ineffectual window dressing’ and the recommendation that there should be no cap of top executives’ pay was ”spineless”.
Unite assistant general secretary, Gail Cartmail, said: ”This was a golden opportunity to bring a sense of reality into bosses’ pay in the public sector – but what Will Hutton has come up with is both ineffectual and spineless.”
Gail Cartmail, who was Unite’s representative in discussions with the Hutton review team, said: ”One hand you have the jobs of public sector workers being lost by the thousands; their employment conditions eroded; and their pensions being hacked back; and yet you have the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), which is 83 per cent owned by the state, being exempt from this review.
”There are a reported 300 millionaires at RBS and more than 20 ministers attending cabinet are millionaires, but the lowest paid are struggling, in many cases, on £13,000-a-year. Ministers say: “We are all in this together” – you must be joking.
”Will Hutton is a good man – but on this occasion, he is misguided. However, his conclusions will be used as window dressing, while this government gets on with its real business – that of placating the rich and powerful at the expense of working people.
”This was a great opportunity to inject much needed fairness into the pay of some chief executives in the public sector, which give such a bad image about the public service ethos. However, that opportunity has been squandered and made worse by the biggest earners being excluded from the remit of the review.”
In its submission to the review, Unite had argued that trade union representatives should have ‘a say’ on how much senior executives are awarded in pay rises. This followed the furore over the vast disparity between what top bosses get paid in the public sector and the lowest paid bringing up families on as little as £13,000-a-year.
Unite was also critical as to why the review was not investigating the pay in such organisations as the Royal Mail, the BBC and taxpayer-supported nationalised banks, where the government aspiration of a 20:1 ratio between the chief executive and the lowest paid appeared to be exceeded.
Unite has 250,000 members working in the public sector embracing the NHS, local government, education and the prison service.
The government asked Will Hutton - currently the executive vice-chair of The Work Foundation - to make recommendations to the chancellor and prime minister by this March on promoting pay fairness in the public sector by tackling disparities between the lowest and the highest paid in public sector organisations.
Source: Unite
