{"id":13605,"date":"2017-09-28T14:01:03","date_gmt":"2017-09-28T13:01:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=13605"},"modified":"2017-09-29T15:53:56","modified_gmt":"2017-09-29T14:53:56","slug":"scrap-the-cap-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=13605","title":{"rendered":"Scrap the cap"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

When Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said yesterday<\/a> (September 27) in his conference speech that Labour is now \u00e2\u20ac\u015bthe political mainstream\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he was clearly on to something.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The public sector pay cap \u00e2\u20ac\u201c now having been in place for seven years, choking the living standards of workers carrying out vital services we all rely on \u00e2\u20ac\u201c was once considered necessary.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Pay restraint, as successive Tory-led governments have dressed up the cap, was a sacrifice required of all public servants, so the thinking went.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Fast forward seven years and Labour\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s plan to lift the cap \u00e2\u20ac\u201c for all public sector workers \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and give them the pay rise they deserve has become an almost universally championed idea across the political spectrum.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The level of consensus over this, specifically for NHS workers, was most recently revealed in a new ComRes survey of more than 2,000 people which found that a full 84 per cent supported scrapping the cap.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Nearly just as many \u00e2\u20ac\u201c 83 per cent \u00e2\u20ac\u201c agreed that health service staff should get a pay rise in line with the RPI measure of inflation, which now stands at 3.9 per cent and is the pay rise that NHS unions including Unite have called for.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The unions have also requested a further \u00c2\u0141800 payment to partially restore their lost wages under several years of the pay cap. This too, a significant portion of the public agrees with \u00e2\u20ac\u201c 69 per cent.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The public also strongly supports more funding being made available to the NHS so that its pay review body is able to give health workers a pay rise above 1 per cent, with 77 per cent agreeing on the need for additional funding.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Jeremy Corbyn highlighted yesterday (September 27) in his conference speech that not only has the pay cap made public sector workers suffer, with many thousands barely being able to make ends meet, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also contributed to a mounting recruitment and retention crisis, in effect causing our crumbling, austerity-striken public services to further deteriorate.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bYear after year the Tories have cut budgets and squeezed public sector pay, while cutting taxes for the highest earners and the big corporations,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Corbyn said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bYou can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t care for the nation\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s health when doctors and nurses are being asked to accept falling living standards year after year.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bYou can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t educate our children properly in ever larger class sizes with more teachers than ever leaving the profession.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bYou can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t protect the public on the cheap.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bScrapping the public sector pay squeeze isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t an act of charity – it is a necessity to keep our public services fully staffed and strong,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he noted.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Labour leader showed he has the finger on the pulse of the nation \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the ComRes survey reflected this exact same sentiment, with a majority of the public (77 per cent) saying they thought that low pay was one of the reasons for many staff leaving the NHS.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A similar proportion (74 per cent) thought that low pay was also a factor in young people not choosing careers in the NHS.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Unite head of health Sara Carpenter said that \u00e2\u20ac\u015bUnite knows how much the NHS is valued and respected, and the results of this survey prove that beyond a shadow of a doubt.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe need a fully funded NHS, and our NHS staff need a fully funded, decent pay rise,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 she added. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bHow long will it take for this government to take responsibility for the mess it has created and start to put it right?\u00c2\u00a0 It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s about respect \u00e2\u20ac\u201c for staff, for patients, for people \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and so far we have seen none.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said yesterday (September 27) in his conference speech that Labour is now \u00e2\u20ac\u015bthe political mainstream\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he was clearly on to something.   The public sector pay cap \u00e2\u20ac\u201c now having been in place for seven years, choking the living standards of workers carrying out vital services we all rely on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1820,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[360,29,51,184],"wps_subtitle":"Public overwhelmingly supports NHS staff pay rise","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13605"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13605"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13605\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13606,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13605\/revisions\/13606"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}