Get serious on pay in 2025, TUC chief tells ministers

As general secretary of the TUC, Paul Nowak sits at the top of an organisation that represents five and a half million workers.

He has been critical of what he described as the "chaos and decline" of the Conservative years.

But he now wants to see Labour's promise of change at this year's general election turned in to "delivery" in 2025.

He says: "Families want to feel better off and see material improvements in their day to day lives."

The first few months of the new year could be defined by further battles over public sector pay.

Some of his member unions are raising the prospect of renewed strike action unless the government is willing to stump up more cash.

Ministers have recommended rises of 2.8% – just above the current inflation rate of 2.6% – next year.

It's a figure which Nowak does not see as serious, or on a scale to attract much-needed staff to public services.

His message to ministers is this: "If you are serious about repairing and renewing our public services, you have to be serious about public service pay.

'It's hard to see how a 2.8% rise addresses the recruitment and retention crisis across the public sector, with 150,000 staff vacancies in the NHS alone."

The government has said it is committed to rebuilding public services but that pay awards must be fair both for taxpayers and workers.

"Under our Plan for Change – which will rebuild our public services - we are focused on ensuring that every part of government is delivering on working people's priorities," a government spokesperson said.

He is asking the government to use the six-month long Spending Review currently under way to come up with a longer term plan for funding public services.

In the more immediate future, he hopes the government will move beyond the 2.8% figure.

It's possible independent pay review bodies will recommend a higher figure and the government has said it will consider their reports.

But ministers have also said any further increase would have to be accompanied by improvements in productivity.

The TUC leader is scratching his head over how this would be measured in some public sector roles.

"Nobody quite knows what productivity means in a classroom, or an NHS trust, or in a prison," he says.

"We all want to deliver services more efficiently but we can't do that at the expense of the pay and conditions of staff on the front line."

He rejects the Conservative assertion that inflation-busting rises in pay this year were at the expense of the pensioners who are losing their winter fuel payments.

He believes the government should have been able to move on pay, while protecting pensioners.

"The TUC has been very clear that the decision to withdraw the winter fuel allowance was a mistake.

"We absolutely want to see support - particularly for pensioners just above the [pension credit] threshold."

Paul Nowak believes there can be too much of a "narrow focus" on pay – working conditions matter too. He warmly welcomed the government's Employment Rights Bill.

As someone who had worked on temporary contracts in the past, he welcomes any move towards more secure, less unstable employment.

The legislation was tabled within 100 days of Labour taking office, as promised.

But much of it will be covered by subsequent, secondary legislation and is still subject to consultation.

Some employers are not just lobbying the business department but the Treasury, too, in the hope that a number of measures can be reconsidered.

For example, they want ministers to extend a proposed nine-month probationary period for new employees, during which time it can be easier to dismiss them.

The TUC leader said: "This would be a real mistake. It's really important the government delivers.

"It's no surprise there some parts of the business community are shouting loudly about potential negative impacts on business.

"These are the same people that warned 25 years ago about the introduction of the national minimum wage."

And he fired a warning shot to ministers: "It's really important the government sticks to its guns."

But perhaps his starkest message to the government is over its ambitious green agenda and its commitment – in its Plan for Change to have 95% of energy needs met from "clean" sources such as renewables by 2030.

He shares the aim but remains concerned about the consequences, without a detailed plan for those in currently working in fossil fuel industries.

He told me: "All of our unions support the transition to net zero… but we have to do it in a way that supports workers at the sharp end.

"It's not enough to give warm words about a 'just transition' – we need concrete plans about job security, income security – whole towns and cities are reliant on the oil and gas industries.

"Not every green job is a good job."

And he offered a warning from recent history: "We have seen what has happened when you get an industrial transition wrong – the closure of mines, the steel industry.

"Towns and cities decimated for decades."

Ministers insist that a move to green power will attract more investment, support new skilled jobs, and "re-industrialise" parts of the UK.

Paul Nowak has worked for the TUC for almost a quarter of a century, and was its deputy general secretary from 2016 to the start of 2023.

He told me there has been - perhaps unsurprisingly – much greater engagement from this Labour government than its predecessors.

The TUC will hope to influence ministers, but it's clear they won't always see eye-to-eye.