The leader of Britain’s largest private sector union has criticised Labour’s economic policies and said that skilled, well-paid work is in decline.
Amicus general secretary Derek Simpson told a Sheffield conference that the British labour market was “built on sand”.
“Skilled employment is haemorrhaging and employers are pressing down hard on wages and conditions such as pensions and working hours,” he said.
“The decline of skilled and well-paid employment threatens to undermine public spending commitments and sacrifice the electoral feel-good factor generated by improving services.”
The union claimed that one million manufacturing jobs in the UK had disappeared since Labour took office in 1997.
The patience of working people has been strained to breaking point and they now want to see the promised land, Simpson said.
“They want secure jobs that pay well and pensions that keep them out of poverty in old age. These are simple demands,” he said.
