(MENAFN) The UK's largest private sector union, Unite, has warned of a "summer of discontent" over wages, as the government plans to limit pay increases in order to combat the country's surging inflation.

Sharon Graham, the general secretary of the "Unite" trade union, told the BBC on Thursday that ordinary workers have already "had a spring, summer, autumn, and winter of discontent for years," and that if workers are forced to "pay the price for inflation," there could be hundreds of disputes involving tens of thousands of people.

A cost-of-living issue, along with rising prices, has already fueled popular outrage in the United Kingdom in recent months. Food and energy price increases have pushed UK inflation past 9%, the highest rate in the last 40 years.

Graham, who just took over as president of Unite, emphasized that the government's proposals to cap wage increases are completely "wrong" and "abhorrent."

“Any employer who can pay, who has made profit out of workers, has to pay a proper fair wage to those workers,” she emphasized.

A representative of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) has claimed “With living costs at the highest level in decades, workers are understandably concerned about how they’re going to cope with rising prices. Businesses too are being hit by soaring input costs.”

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