UNISON Deputy General Secretary, Keith Sonnet, will deliver a tough warning to Birmingham City Council to pull back from its plans to sack its 22,000 workforce and re-employ them on inferior pay and conditions.
He will deliver the message at a rally of council workers this Saturday (12 January) at noon outside the Council House, Market Square, Birmingham.
The union is currently balloting its 14,000 members for strike action over the plans that will lead to thousands of staff, mainly women, losing between £1,000 and £18,000 a year.
The dispute has been raging in Birmingham for several months. UNISON has rejected the new pay and grading structure as totally unacceptable. It does not deliver equal pay and brings with it massive pay cuts to thousands of UNISON members.
Keith Sonnet will say:
ÒI warn Birmingham council to pull back from the brink or face a damaging conflict with the unions and its own workforce.
ÒThere is no way that UNISON could tolerate the wholesale sacking of an entire workforce or the imposition of a new pay structure that does not deliver equal pay but ends with thousands losing thousands.
ÒThe right to equal pay is not a take-it-or-leave-it bit of legislation. Birmingham council has a duty to make sure that it doesnÕt discriminate against women. It is behaving in a disgraceful, dictatorial and provocative manner with scant regard for the consequences for its own workforce or Birmingham residents.
ÒBirmingham council must drag itself back into the 21st century. It should get back round the table with the trade unions and agree a proper way forward. We want to sort out the issue of equal pay, so that Birmingham council employees can concentrate of delivering quality public services to
the people of the cityÓ.
Discussions around a new pay structure that brings equal pay have been taking place on and off with the unions for several years in Birmingham, but consultation began in earnest in October 2006. Following a year of talks, the council announced its intention to impose a new package on its workforce, without a collective agreement.
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A massive 70% of staff have rejected the new package.
Thousands of staff, predominantly women, will lose between £1,000 and £18,000 a year.
Refuse collectors, road workers, street cleansers face losing 50% of their pay.
4,000 cleaners will get just £1 a week pay rise.
1,700 school meals workers will get just 1p an hour extra.
1,100 home care assistants who care for the elderly at home and 1,000 residential care assistants whose jobs have been at £16,000 plus will get just £13,500 a year.
But managers in new grades 6 and 7 will have their salaries lifted by more than £2,000.
The City council pays huge numbers of external consultants £1,000 per day.