Although just under three in five public sector workers understand that they risk losing public sympathy if they cause disruption through strike action, 49% believe that they must do what is necessary to protect their jobs.
But according to a survey of 2,000 UK private and public sector workers undertaken by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) in anticipation of Wednesday’s Comprehensive Spending Review announcement, some 54% would not be willing to lose pay to take part in industrial action.
In total, just under three quarters of all private and public sector respondents concurred that strikes would cause the latter to lose sympathy if it resulted in service disruption to the general public.
In fact, 53% of private sector workers said they were more worried about the damage that strikes would cause to the economy than the impact of spending cuts. The figure dropped to 35% among public sector staff.
As a result, Mike Emmott, the CIPD’s employee relations advisor, warned that both the coalition government and the trade unions needed to "tread softly".
On the one hand, the unions had to understand that "many private sector employees have already suffered pay freezes or cuts, job losses and cuts to pension entitlement and will be sensitive to any rhetoric by union leaders threatening strike action which does not appear to appreciate the sacrifices already made by those in the private sector", he said.
On the other, the government had a "key role" to play in preventing disputes by being careful about the language it employed and how it timed and communicated information and messages.
"The Comprehensive Spending Review announcement will create a lot of anxiety and uncertainty and it is essential that, as the details of jobs cuts and any changes to pay or pension provision are announced over the next few months, public sector employers are allowed the necessary time to communicate and consult on what changes are being planned and just as crucially – why," Emmott added.
People were much more likely to accept tough messages if they were given the right information at the right time and felt that their views had "at least been heard and taken into account before decisions were made", he said.
Unfortunately, however, only 50% of public sector employees bought into the argument that the deficit needs to be reduced through cuts to public spending compared with 69% of private sector personnel.
