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The government’s plan to cut 90,000 Civil Service jobs marks a return to austerity, TUC warns

TORY Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s plan to cut 90,000 Civil Service jobs marks a return to austerity and will “damage communities,” the TUC’s Frances O’Grady warned today.

Speaking to Sky News, the general secretary of the union confederation said: “This is back to austerity – and we saw how austerity failed not only ordinary people but the country in the end by holding back growth.

“How on Earth the government expects to be able to shed 90,000 civil servants at a stroke and for it not to damage communities, I really don’t know.

“Communities will be extremely angry if they’re looking to get hit again, in terms of key public services.”

Last week, Mr Johnson gave ministers one month to devise ways to axe 20 per cent of the workforce, claiming the move is needed to free up funds to tackle the worsening cost-of-living crisis.

The Public and Commercial Services union – the biggest Civil Service union with more than 177,000 members — is set to hold an emergency executive meeting this week.

National strike action is “very much on the table,” it has warned. 

Ms O’Grady also criticised the government’s push to get workers back into the office after an increase in home working during the Covid-19 pandemic, saying that people “deserve a bit of basic respect.”

She told the Daily Mail newspaper: “It feels a bit ironic given the Prime Minister is the classic case of somebody who always works from home because he’s based in Number 10.

“I think people who work from home work very hard.

“This should be a matter for unions and employers. I would have hoped that politicians facing a living standards emergency had more important things to be getting on with.”

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