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On opening day of TUC’s annual conference, Brendan Barber says government’s case for public sector pension reform has been ‘comprehensively blown out of the water’ The leader of the TUC has refused to rule out further widespread industrial action over “utterly unacceptable” reforms to the pension schemes of around 6 million workers. Brendan Barber warned the prospect of mass walkouts was “finely balanced” because of the lack of progress in the talks. Barber, who is due to address delegates at the opening day of the TUC conference, told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme he believed unions would get broad public support if forced to resort to industrial action, because the government’s case for reforms had been “comprehensively blown out of the water”. His comments came as leaders of the heavyweight unions made clear they were prepared to lead millions of workers on mass walkouts unless serious negotiations began to take place. As delegates representing 55 unions under the TUC umbrella gather in central London for the first day of their annual conference, Barber said: “We are in the middle of difficult negotiations at the moment on the issue of public service pensions. “Six million public service workers [are] fearful that their pensions are to be stripped down in a way that is utterly unacceptable. I hope that negotiations will be able to reach a settlement without the need of further industrial action, but it’s very finely balanced at the moment and as things stand we are a long way away from reaching that settlement and therefore we could see further widespread industrial action.” He cited figures from the Office for Budget Responsibility and Lord Hutton’s report on public sector pensions, which pointed to the fact that the cost of pensions as a proportion of GDP was set to fall over the coming decade. “So the changes they want to make are not driven by fears of affordability,” he said. Len McCluskey, the leader of the Unite union, told the Observer this weekend that “every conceivable form of protest and action should be carefully considered” in protest at coalition cuts to pensions and public services, from civil disobedience through to co-ordinated industrial strikes. Dave Prentis, leader of the country’s largest public sector union, Unison, conceded on Monday that the failure to make progress in the talks was building up to a “serious issue”. He told Today his union was prepared to ballot over 1 million public sector workers if talks failed, though striking was the last resort for members. “This is really building up to be a serious issue,” said Prentis. “We have got time to negotiate, we’ve still got I think two to three months to try and sort things out; we want to sort things out, we want sustainable viable schemes that give dignity to people.” On the prospect of taking strike action, Prentis said: “We represent nurses, we represent workers who look after very vulnerable children. In all the caring services in our society, it’s actually our members who provide those resources but you can’t have a year of talks and have not moved one iota in those talks. “Because at some point if it goes on like this … I can see a stage where the government will just impose by diktat and we will move to industrial action and that day will come ever closer.” Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union, said pressure from public sector workers will mean the government will “have to have a rethink” on their plans for pensions and spending cuts. Serwotka, who claimed last week that unions were preparing to co-ordinate strike actin in November, told Today: “We’re in for a very, very bumpy ride if that remains the government position. However, we hope that as they see more and more professional public sector workers, we think supported by many, many people in the country, stand up and say ‘this is wrong’ that they’ll have to have a rethink.” He said the coalition government did not have a mandate for its plans. “The Liberal Democrats opposed most of these measures in the last general election and we think the lack of mandate, the lack of popular support for what they’re doing will become more and more apparent as we see people prepared to take industrial action, campaigns spring up locally to defend local services.” Serwotka added: “We think that can create enough opposition to force the government to have a rethink.” The 143rd annual Trades Union Congress is set to focus on the economy. Barber said ahead of his keynote speech there were fears unemployment would rise because the economy was “flatlining”. Barber, who makes his speech on the same day that the government-commissioned Vickers report outlines plans for reforming UK banks , will urge unions to “shift the debate” away from deficit reduction and on to building a new economy. “We have virtually no growth in the economy,” Barber told BBC news. “Our fears are that unemployment will rise further and for a lot of ordinary families their living costs are facing a real squeeze. “The government’s approach of having these huge cuts and focusing on austerity rather than growth is taking us in the wrong direction. We need to change course and that argument will be coming through in our debate today.” TUC Trade unions Brendan Barber Len McCluskey Dave Prentis Conferences Pensions Public sector careers Public sector cuts Public services policy Public finance Public sector pay Public sector pensions Hélène Mulholland guardian.co.uk