Forget the bankers - focus on the workers, Barber tells government

(Thursday 23 April 2009)

by Malcolm Burns in Perth

In a fraternal address to the STUC in Perth, TUC general secretary Brendan Barber urged the government to show "the same determination in protecting working people from the worst of the recession as it has in protecting banks from the greedy excesses of their bosses."

Mr Barber issued a warning to the government and the Chancellor.

"The idea that there are £15 billion worth of painless cuts is quite mistaken. To claim this is to play into the hands of the small-state right who lose no opportunity to attack the public sector, its staff and their pensions," he said.

"Governments must over the long-term ensure that they can run sustainable public finances.

"But if we let the country's productive base waste away now through a short-term refusal to let the deficit grow, it will be much more painful to get the public finances in order, with millions on the dole and whole industrial and service sectors hollowed out."

Mr Barber argued that the union message is clear - we can't go back to business as usual.

"We don't want to go back to the idea that the market always knows best and that deregulation is the only game in town," he said.

"We don't want to see inequality grow as a new class of super-rich float away from the rest of us - a group who think tax is for the little people."

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