Nurses and other striking workers demanding pay rises to reduce inflation will have to back down on their demands, a union leader has admitted.
Paul Nowak, 50, the new head of the Congress of Trade Unions, said both sides would have to compromise in disputes over wages as the Government said striking workers would not be “held to a ransom”.
On his first day on the job, Nowak, whose organization represents 48 unions and 5.5 million workers, said the Government needed to sit down with walkers and find a “landing zone” to end on strike
Among the biggest pay rises demanded by the unions is a five per cent pay rise above retail inflation by the Royal College of Nursing, which equates to a 19.2 per cent rise.
Although TUC membership does not include the RCN, Nowak told Radio 4’s Today program that the demand was unrealistic.
He said he hoped a compromise could be reached, but that would only be possible if the Government sat down to negotiate, which he claimed it “refused to do”.
“There must be a landing zone between the four and five percent that the Government has offered and the 19 percent that some unions have demanded, but what is crucial is that the Government sits down and negotiates” .
Nowak added that the Government should talk about pay and said the Health Secretary should start discussions with nurses and paramedics.
“My message to the Government is that you have to talk and you have to reach a compromise,” he said.
Nowak, who started his career as a part-time worker at Asda aged 17 and went on to work in call centres, as a hotel night porter and briefly as an estate agent, also questioned whether the system of public sector pay review bodies could continue in its current form.