George Osborne meets TUC leader to discuss Tories' pay freeze policy

George Osborne yesterday met the TUC general secretary, Brendan Barber, days after the Tories warned Britain's trade unions not to "stand in the way" of a public sector pay freeze. In a sign of how the TUC is preparing for a Conservative government, Barber held what were described as candid and constructive talks with the shadow chancellor. The two men, who met at the TUC's Congress House in London, discussed Osborne's plans to cut Britain's record fiscal deficit earlier than Labour if the Tories win the election. Osborne alarmed trade union leaders at the Tory conference last year when he announced that a central part of his assault on the £178bn fiscal deficit would involve a pay freeze in 2011 for 5 million public sector workers earning more than £18,000 – 80% of the total. The Tories claimed that the pay freeze would save 100,000 jobs. But Derek Simpson, the joint general secretary of the Unite union, which is bankrolling Labour's election campaign, said Osborne's plans had been written "on the back of a Bullingdon club membership card". The meeting yesterday came days after David Cameron warned trade union leaders not to resort to strike action in response to the pay freeze. The Tory leader told BBC Radio 5 Live on Monday: "The public sector unions and other trade unions have to recognise the difficulty the country is in. You can have a reasonable conversation with them, which is: we have to get to grips with public spending, we have got to get this deficit under control or our economy will be in serious problems. "I hope they will understand that. But, if they don't, the government has to govern properly. It has to take the right decisions, it has to defend them to the public, it has to say to the trade unions, 'You can't stand in the way of what is good and right and necessary for the economy.' "No government should be pressured into giving way because of strikes. I think we can help trade unions to understand the importance of getting the deficit down." Both sides are likely to claim that yesterday's meeting was part of the normal course of contacts between the TUC and all political parties. But the meeting does suggest that the TUC, many of whose members will be pumping millions of pounds into Labour's election campaign, is gearing up for a Cameron government. The Tories are keen to build good relations with the trade unions because they would like to avoid a repeat of the poisonous relations between Margaret Thatcher and the union movement. At one point the former prime minister dubbed the NUM leader Arthur Scargill the "enemy within". Osborne and Cameron hope to ease relations by claiming that their plans to start cutting the deficit earlier than Labour are driven by necessity, rather than a desire to slash public spending. Cameron emphasised this point on Radio 5 Live when he said: "I don't want to cut public spending. We have to do it in order to save our country. It is a problem you cannot walk away from. This government is walking away from it. "They may talk about tough spending rounds for the future but right now they are not doing anything about it." Labour has pledged to halve the deficit in four years, a process that would begin in April 2011. The Tories say they would begin this year. A TUC spokesperson said: "As part of our routine contact with politicians of all political parties, Brendan Barber met George Osborne for a wide-ranging discussion on the economy." A Conservative party spokesman said: "I can confirm a meeting took place between George Osborne and members of his staff and Brendan Barber and TUC officials."