UNISON and the Local Government Pay Commission
The Commission has now released its report, following a year of deliberations. There is much in it to welcome from a UNISON point of view. The Commission supports continued national bargaining, sees JE and Single Status implementation as the way forward for dealing with pay discrimination and has called for equal pay audits in every council.
The report is less helpful on basic pay levels, although it points out that local government workers' pay fell behind the rest of the economy between 1988 and 2002 and states that above inflation pay increases could be justified on equality grounds. Its findings on basic pay and recruitment and retention have not fully confronted our arguments about low pay levels throughout the structure and their negative impact on staffing and services.
Overall, the tone and basic arguments underpinning the report are those put forward in the UNISON and trade union side evidence. The Commission agrees that local government workers have become the 'poor relations' of the public sector. They call for a more strategic approach to workforce matters and investment in single status implementation and training.
The need for equality at the bargaining table, within trade unions and throughout local government is a key theme throughout the report. It calls for trade unions to be 'as representative of all employees as possible' and for unions to 'capacity build on equality at a local level'.
Read the UNISON summary in online HTML format
Download the UNISON summary in PDF format
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