Balls: Union Strikes Will Play Into Tory Trap

Shadow chancellor Ed Balls has urged unions not to fall into what he calls the "Tory trap" by striking over public spending pension cuts.

Mr Balls claimed ministers were deliberately trying to provoke the unions into industrial action so they could blame them for the failure of the Government's economic strategy.

Writing in the Sunday Mirror, Mr Balls warned it was not in the unions' interests to engage in mass strikes.

He said the country did not want to see a return to the "division and confrontation" of the 1980s.

"From David Cameron down, Ministers are saying to the trade unions: 'Bring it on'. Like in the 1980s, they seem to be spoiling for a fight, goading the unions and trying to provoke strikes," he wrote.

"George Osborne knows the economy has flat-lined over the last six months. He knows he's losing the economic argument on the deficit and jobs and needs to change course.

"But instead he's trying to pick a fight about pensions, provoke strikes and persuade the public to blame the stalling economy on the unions.

"That's why trade union leaders must avoid George Osborne's trap. He wants them to think that going on strike is the only option and the best way to win the argument."

But Treasury Chief Secretary Danny Alexander slammed the claims, telling Sky's Dermot Murnaghan they were "a totally false analysis".

"What I want to do is have reform of public sector pensions that is financially sustainable for public sector workers who rightly deserve the best pensions available and that are sustainable for the taxpayer as well.

"I'm quite clear about where the fault lies in terms of the economic mess we are in.

"It is not the trade unions, it is with the former Labour government - their failure to regulate the financial system and the banks and the enormous budget deficit that they built up."

Dave Prentis , the general secretary of Unison, has warned the coalition that it is facing the biggest wave of industrial action since the general strike of 1926.

The unions reacted with fury after Mr Alexander last week set out plans which require most public sector employees to work longer and pay more for less generous entitlements in retirement.

But while Labour has condemned the Government's negotiating tactics, it has stopped short of backing the unions' demands.

Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, whose members voted to join a mass one-day strike on June 30, said ministers should withdraw their "diktat" pensions.

"The Government has to decide whether it is in negotiation or it is simply going to lay down the law," she said.

"That is a gun to our heads and we will not be walked over in that way."