The Trades Union Congress (TUC) and its member unions representing public sector workers are calling on the government to bring public sector pay above inflation.

The campaign, Speak Up for Public Services dubbed as ‘major’, is being launched today at Westminster.

According to the union body, the Government’s target of 2 per cent pay rises across the public sector represents a cut in living standards. The TUC says the proposed pay figure is at odds with the cost of living, which is rising at around 4 per cent a year.

In its report Six million pay cuts also published today, the TUC says that the government’s pay target will widen the pay gap between men and women, hit staff retention, recruitment and morale, whilst threatening a return to what it calls the “bad old days of public sector pay boom and bust.”

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: “Many public sector servants can remember the bad old days of boom and bust in public sector pay. The government’s four-year plan of public sector pay bust means that resentment can only grow and fester among public servants – all of whom have votes.”