LONDON (AFX) - Trades Union Congress said the Bank of England was "wrong to be cautious" when it decided not to touch rates at today's monetary policy committee meeting. John Monks, TUC general secretary, said his group is disappointed over the BoE's "over-cautious" rate freeze and is calling for further rate cuts in the next MPC meeting. "The BoE is wrong to be so cautious. With today's desperately bad figures for manufacturing confirming the sector is in prolonged recession and with no real inflationary threat, it's time for the BoE to be bold," he said. The latest BoE decision will be "another blow" to Britain's ailing manufacturing sector. "With the continuing world recession, we needed a rate cut to give us extra protection against the threat of recession in the rest of Europe. A cut would also have helped bring down the exchange rate by reducing the gap between our interest rates and rates in the Euro zone," Monks pointed out. If the situation does not improve, the TUC is expecting job losses to further rise to 150,000 this year from 146,000 last year, he stressed. Monks said the BoE "now has just one last chance" to cut rates before the Budget 2002 as a measure to encourage manufacturers to rebuild inventory and boost productivity.