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Speaking later today (Friday) at a union conference in Liverpool, TUC General Secretary Frances O'Grady will call on all the political parties to make living standards a defining issue for the next election.

date: 14 February 2013

embargo: 00:01 hours Friday 15 February 2013

Speaking later today (Friday) at a union conference in Liverpool, TUC General Secretary Frances O'Grady will call on all the political parties to make living standards a defining issue for the next election.

The new head of the TUC, who will be addressing UNISON's annual women's conference, will say:

'It is essential that all the political parties make living standards a defining issue at the next election. Families throughout the country are seeing their household budgets strained to breaking point as wages fail to keep up with prices, under-employment soars, bills continue to rise and cuts to vital benefits, such as tax credits and child benefit, hit people both in and out of work.

'As a series of official figures showed this week, the average worker is worse off now than they were a decade ago. But unless we can secure stronger growth in living standards in the years ahead we won't be able to build a sustainable recovery. This means we need new measures to make sure that everyone shares in the rewards of future growth. This issue must be at the top of the political agenda. Politicians, regardless of their party allegiance, cannot turn a blind eye to this struggle.'

Highlighting the impact of austerity on Liverpool and the North West, Frances O'Grady will say:

'Liverpool has been hit harder by council funding cuts than any other city and its local authority has lost far more of its grant than any of the Conservative-held shire councils.

'This has had a very real human cost. Last week Liverpool City Council announced another 150 job losses and further service cuts as it seeks to cuts its budget by £32m next year.

'Across the North West over 50,000 public sector jobs have already gone. But sadly, we may not even be a third of the way through them yet. If it the Office for Budget Responsibility is right we could lose over a million public sector jobs by 2018 - with over 180,000 going in the North West alone.

'These job losses will have a devastating impact on communities and on the quality of public services. Just think what the 600 potential job losses might mean for Liverpool Royal Hospital. And of course it will be women who bear the brunt of these redundancies - and that's on top of cuts to tax credits, benefits and other vital public services.'

NOTES TO EDITORS:

- Frances O'Grady will speak at 10.50am. UNISON's Women's Conference is being held at the BT Convention Centre, Kings Dock, Waterfront, Liverpool L3 4FP.

- All TUC press releases can be found at www.tuc.org.uk

- Follow the TUC on Twitter: @tucnews

Contacts:

Media enquiries:
Liz Chinchen T: 020 7467 1248 M: 07778 158175 E: media@tuc.org.uk
Rob Holdsworth T: 020 7467 1372 M: 07717 531150 E: rholdsworth@tuc.org.uk
Alex Rossiter T: 020 7467 1337 M: 07887 572130 E: arossiter@tuc.org.uk

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