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Comment by Nebasuke | Hacker News Reader

The UK government has done this various times in the last couple of years to argue against (high) pay rises for the National Health Service and other government institutions.

One of the more recent articles: https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-annual-wage-growth-72-ex... Or here: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/jun/20/would-a-wag...

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So the one exception that I considered putting in would be cases where the government is the employer and is negotiating with their employees. And yes of course, they will use whatever arguments they can to come out ahead in labor negotiations, like any employer.

I didn't see any mention of calls for workers to accept lower wages in the first article. In the second article, such calls were mentioned but not explicitly referenced or quoted. (Maybe they would be familiar to a British audience.)

But I would say that is different than asking for private sector workers to accept lower wages as an inflation fighting strategy. And note that the actual fiscal policy that the UK has pursued is wage subsidies, as much as 650£ - 1000£ annually it seems. (As described in the second article, not something I'm familiar with beyond that.)

UK govt spokespeople have regularly argued that employers and employees, both public and private, should limit wage rises or accept lower rises to avoid inflation. It’s mad, but that’s actually what they say.

Ironically, they are most vehement when claiming wage rises in the public sector cause inflation, despite ethe evidence there being much weaker (or non existent according to many economists).

UK Government is a right-wing government right? Their goal is to help big business not the employees. Isn't that the definition of right-wing?

Telling workers to accept lower pay makes about as much sense as asking companies to accept lower profits. Yes you can ask but they will not obey.

Sunak regularly has called on UK private sector leaders to show "restraint" when deciding pay awards. One such example:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-11-15/uk-s-suna...

What he should be calling for is for private sector leaders to show restraint when raising prices. But he doesn't. That just tells you whose side he is on.

Sure but that's an appeal to the employer setting the wages, not the worker. (Or is he talking about executive pay for themselves? I couldn't read the article.)

The thread is about exactly that: an appeal to the employer in the form of advocating lower wages as a means to combat inflation.

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