A poll for the Trades Union Congress has found widespread support for ending the 1% restriction on public sector pay increases.
The survey, conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, asked over 3,000 people to express their level of support for a host of policies, with 0 meaning strong opposition and 10 equating to strong support.
RELATED CONTENT
Asked to rank their support for “ending restrictions on pay increases for public sector workers like nurses and teachers”, 70% of those polled answered between six and 10, indicating some level of support. This rose to 76% when only those who voted in the general election were included, with strong support across the political spectrum, with majority backing from Conservative (68%) Labour (82%) Liberal Democrat (82%) and UKIP (71%) voters.
Commenting on the poll, Public and Commercial Services union general secretary Mark Serwotka said: “After the election result, Theresa May has no mandate to continue with damaging policies such as the pay cap and more cuts to public services, and they should be immediately reversed.”
Public sector pay was originally frozen for two years from 2010, followed by a 1% cap on annual pay rises, which is still in place and was due – under pre-election Conservative plans – to remain in place until at least 2020.
The restrictions are under increasing pressure after prime minister Theresa May’s chief of staff Gavin Barwell pointed to public sector pay restraint as a key reason for dwindling Conservative support in the general election campaign. His comments echo those of former head of the civil service Lord Kerslake, who told CSW that the pay freeze had directly influenced voting decisions in the election.
The poll also found widespread support for policies including banning “exploitative zero-hours contracts” (71% support from those polled), introducing a new legal duty to end “excess private profits” in the NHS (76%), and a crackdown on tax evasion and avoidance by big companies and rich people (84%).
Serwotka also highlighted public support for “decent public services” even if that meant taxes going up. Asked whether they thought maintaining public services was more important than keeping taxes low, 54% agreed with the statement “political parties should aim to maintain decent public services even if that means my taxes go up”, while only 28% agreed “political parties should aim to keep taxes low even if that means prioritising some public services over others and squeezing them to find savings”.