Key workers need a pay rise – not just kind awards and possible medals

There were claps for NHS workers, and claps for carers, during the first lockdown. As their pay and conditions deteriorate, those workers are clapping back and leaving their jobs in search of better paid, and probably less stressful, roles elsewhere, writes James Moore

More key workers will quit if they don’t receive a pay rise that reflects inflation, the TUC has warned (PA)

Tory MP Craig Tracey lobbed Boris Johnson a typically sycophantic softball at the start of Prime Minister’s Questions: would he consider giving all health workers a “national service medal”.

The North Warwickshire MP pointed to the example of the George Eliot Hospital, which is local to him, and has awarded a medal to its staff.

“Yes of course,” said Johnson, who proceeded to waffle on about the UK Commission on Covid Commemoration, which will consider “how we can recognise the courage of frontline workers”.

This will inevitably involve various worthies lounging around in plush conference rooms and drinking free coffee while engaging in public relations brainstorming sessions.

It’s an exercise with as much point as a pencil stub. We already have the answer and it’s glaringly obvious: pay them. Pay them properly for the jobs they do.

The House of Commons exchange was fortuitous because it dovetailed with a Trades Union Congress (TUC) analysis which found that key workers in the public sector saw their pay falling by 2.3 per cent in inflation adjusted “real” terms in November, which is equivalent to £60 a month.

The squeeze looks set to continue throughout the year, with inflation forecast to hit a high of 6 per cent. Domestic fuel bills are set to almost double when the new energy price cap comes into force in April. And let’s not forget the prime minister’s 1.25 per cent national insurance increase, which will further squeeze take home pay.

One does rather wonder how the prime minister expects people earning quite a bit less than a fifth of the £160,000 or so the prime minister gets for running the country badly to cope with the inflation that his government appears to have no answer for eats into their earnings.

One of the explanations for the decision to freeze public sector pay in the 2021-22 financial year was that teachers, policemen and so on had done well over the previous years when compared to the private sector. Only NHS workers got a rise, although it still undershot inflation.

It was a deeply disingenuous argument because it ignored the fact that their wages had lagged behind through much of the long and painful period of austerity imposed by Conservative and Conservative-led governments following the financial crisis.

Another TUC analysis found, for example, that nurses’ real wages have fallen by more than £2,700 per year in real terms since 2010 as a consequence of this.

Local government care workers, meanwhile, have seen their pockets picked to the tune of £1,600 a year. Take any “key worker” you like form the public sector and the numbers would likely be similarly ugly.

The effect on morale has been brutal. In calling for a “game changing pay rise” and retention package, 14 health unions, representing 1.2 million workers, pointed to the 93,000 vacancies across England, and shortages in every specialism.

“The NHS can ill afford to lose any more staff,” they said. And they’re right. And the same is true of other public services, where key workers have been similarly short changed.

“Large numbers of employees have simply had enough. Many are actively seeking alternative employment and others are seriously considering a job move,” said the health unions in their submission to the independent NHS pay review body.

The consequences of the exodus are increasingly going to make themselves felt, with dire implications for the government’s flailing attempts to rebuild the health and other public services.

There were claps for NHS workers, and claps for carers, during the first lockdown. As their pay and conditions deteriorate, those workers are clapping back and leaving their jobs in search of better paid, and probably less stressful, roles elsewhere.

Medals aren’t going to change that.

“Our amazing key workers don’t need another pat on their head. They need a decent pay rise. A medal is not going to pay the rent or bills. And it’s not going to make up for 11 years of wage cuts and freezes,” said TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady.

Indeed so.