- Conference
- 2015 Special Local Government Conference
- Date
- 26 January 2015
- Decision
- Carried
This Conference endorses the 2014/15 NJC pay claim for a flat rate increase sufficient to raise scale point 5 to the Living Wage outside London.
Conference deplores the fact that the 2014-2016 NJC pay proposals fall so very far short of achieving the 2014/15 claim.
The 2.2% increase on most spine points perpetuates declining living standards for our members. With the Retail Price Index (RPI) projected to increase by ?3% a year in 2014 and 2015, we would have needed a 6.1% pay increase just to avoid our real wages in April 2016 being lower than they were in April 2014.
Of course, many members would accept a settlement which offered a bit less higher up the pay spine if the money was being used to lift the lowest paid to the dignity of a living wage (as, of course, many branches – acting locally – have already achieved).? This, however, is not the case in respect of the 2014-2016 NJC pay proposals.
Those workers employed by authorities which have not already signed up to the living wage, and who are on points 10 and below of the national pay spine, know that (unless their local authority adopts the living wage) they will not reach the rate of the living wage which has been set in the autumn of 2014 this side of the spring of 2016 at the earliest if UNISON fails to make an earlier national pay claim.
Conference believes that the 2014-2016 NJC pay proposals represent a defeat for our trade union.
Conference instructs the NJC Committee to continue to campaign for the objectives of the 2014/15 NJC pay claim by all practicable means.