UNISON slams inflation change proposals

29 Nov 2012

UNISON has slammed proposals that have been put forward to change the way that official inflation measures are calculated, describing them as a back-door attack on pay settlements for workers who are already hard-pressed.

The Office of National Statistics has been consulting on revisions to the statistical techniques used to develop the Retail Price Index (RPI), which could result in the widely-used inflation measure being cut by almost a third.

UNISON has lodged a response to the consultation that exposes the proposals as statistical sleight of hand that would consistently under-estimate the change in the cost of living that workers actually face in their day-to-day lives.

UNISON assistant general secretary Karen Jennings commented: "RPI has been widely accepted as the most accurate indicator of the changes workers face in their cost of living for the past 65 years.

"The sudden 'discovery' of these claimed flaws in the calculation of RPI comes at a remarkably convenient time for the government's austerity programme.

"Slashing the value of RPI would be another downward pressure on pay, at a time when employees and their families are already reeling from years of inflation decimating the value of their pay packets, and savage cuts in public services and welfare support, on top of job losses that have left six people competing for every vacancy."

UNISON UK news release is here

To read UNISON's full response to the consultation click here.

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