Post date: Sep 13, 2010 5:55:11 PM
Unions in Britain warn the goverment's plans to slash public spending will threaten the country's economic recovery.
UK-UNIONS WARNING - Joining forces labour unions in Britain showed they won't be pushed around by the government.
Standing together they launched their campaign to fight against the coalition government's public sector cuts.
They say plans to slash jobs and spending will threaten the country's economic recovery.
Addressing hundreds of union members, Trade Union Congress general secretary Brendan Barber warned Britons of their bleak future.
BRENDAN BARBER, GENERAL SECRETARY, SAYING:
''Cut services put jobs in peril, and increase inequality. That's the way to make Britain a darker, brutish, more frightening place.''
Prime Minister David Cameron was out greeting war veterans when the comments were made.
The unions say his proposed cuts will be the biggest since the second world war.
Spending in most departments will be reduced by a quarter in order to tackle the country's massive deficit.
Business Secretary Vince Cable says the government wants to work with the unions.
VINCE CABLE, BUSINESS SECRETARY, SAYING:
''My job at the moment is to try to communicate with them, have a dialogue, not a punch up, we don't need that. I think deepdown they understand that the wider public understands that these cuts are necessary. We're not doing it because we want to.''
Unions are keen to invest in jobs and services which they say will pave the way to recovery.
But the coalition government is faced with tackling a deficit which totals 11 percent of national output.
Putting it to the vote unions agreed to join forces and co-ordinate their industrial action in the face of the government's austerity measures.
UPSOT
Strike action may not be popular with everyone in Britain - but neither are the cuts.
Basmah Fahim, Reuters.