PUBLIC service employees face a virtual pay freeze in 2010.

About 1,000 local workers, including school caretakers, hospital porters and cleaners, will get a rise of just 0.1% as part of a deal negotiated last year.

It means a person earning £15,000 per year will get an increase of about 29p per week before deductions.

At the end of the September quarter last year, staff accepted 1.3% below RPI for 2009, which was running at 5.8%.

The figure was agreed on the basis that workers would get 1.3% above RPI for 2010. The figure for the September quarter this year stood at -1.2%.

Unite regional industrial organiser Ron Le Cras (pictured) said members of the union would abide by the agreement but in real terms they would be worse off.

‘I don’t think anybody could have foreseen that the RPI would crash in the way it did, but it only did it because of the mortgage rate,’ he said.

‘I don’t think that the RPI is a true figure as it is distorted by the bank rate.’

RPIX – the figure that excludes mortgages – was 2.4% at the end of September.