Union chief draws a line over cuts
Thursday, 27 May 2010 12:03 AM
By politics.co.uk staff
Public sector union chief Dave Prentis will warn the poor, the sick and the vulnerable are set to suffer as a result of the coalition's cost-cutting agenda.
The Unison general secretary will tell the Wales Trades Union Congress in Llandudno later that an "irresponsible and ideologically driven attack" on the public sector is being undertaken by the government.
The initial £6 billion of cuts to be immediately implemented in the current financial year include £135 million from police services, £230 million from housing and £311 million from local education funding, according to the union.
"This isn't efficiency - it's vandalism," the union will say.
"We need to stop the waste of lives, the waste of talent and the wasted opportunities for our economy of mass unemployment."
Mr Prentis will point out that unemployment is already at eight per cent and rising. Chancellor George Osborne has emphasised the intention is to implement a recruitment freeze where possible - but with drastic cuts across Whitehall redundancies seem inevitable.
"We face tough times, but it will be our movement that fights for every job; our movement that stands with those campaigning to defend their schools, their hospitals, their libraries, their care homes," he will add.
"We should speak up for the voiceless and the vulnerable and hold the powerful to account."
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