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HEALTH service workers, council employees and civil servants are to strike over pay in October.
Action by hundreds of thousands of public-sector workers is planned over three days from Monday October 13.
NHS staff will strike on the Monday, council workers on the Tuesday, and civil servants on the Wednesday.
Members of public service union Unison and the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) voted overwhelmingly for strike action.
“These strikes show we are serious about bringing an end to pay cuts that have slashed the living standards of public servants while the super-rich have been rewarded with tax cuts,” said PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka.
“Until we chase down the tax dodgers and invest properly in our communities and public services, the so-called economic recovery will only ever benefit millionaires, while the millions pay the price.”
The co-ordinated walk-outs take place in the run-up to the TUC’s Britain Needs a Pay Rise demonstration in London on Saturday October 18.
A huge turn-out is anticipated, with coach-loads of protesters pouring in from across Britain.
Public-sector wages were frozen for two years from 2010 and subsequently capped at 1 per cent.
PCS says that since 2010, taking into account pay cuts, an increase in monthly pension contributions and inflation, many civil servants have suffered a 20 per cent fall in their incomes.
The union this week launched a report revealing that companies are evading £80 billion in taxes, while the coalition government axes the jobs of thousands of tax inspectors.
In the NHS, strikers will include nurses, occupational therapists, porters, paramedics, medical secretaries, cooks and healthcare assistants.
The government decided to ignore the recommendations of the independent Pay Review Body, meaning that 60 per cent of NHS staff and 70 per cent of nurses would be denied a pay rise for the next two years.
“Most of us have had a real terms pay cut between 8 and 12 per cent,” said said nurse Eleanor Smith, Unison member at the Labour conference.
“No-one is falling for the Tories’ claim that decent pay costs too much. This was just another ideological choice.”
