UNISON members at Chester council are to stage a half-day strike on Valentine’s Day tomorrow in a dispute over new contracts that they say “massacre” their terms and conditions.
Together with members of the GMB and Unite, 2,000 staff are expected to walk out after Cheshire West and Chester Council bosses introduced new terms and conditions.
In a bid to ‘streamline’ contracts between employees of the four authorities that made up the current council in 2009, council leaders are trying to ipose new contracts which they say will ‘equalise’ terms and conditions, which ‘vary greatly’.
But UNISON has rejected council plans to dismiss staff and re-employ them on new contracts.
The proposed changes mean that, for instance, staff who are contractually obliged to use their own cars are being reclassified as no longer being ‘essential’ car users, so their mileage rate is being slashed.
UNISON area organiser James Rupa said that the cuts to allowances would particularly hit frontline workers who are already predominantly low paid.
West Cheshire assistant branch secretary Ray McHale said union members were not prepared to agree to the cuts.
Mr McHale said: “We balloted about 3,000 members and there were several hundred from GMB and Unite, so about 3,500 in all.
“February 14 is half-term so school people won’t be involved, but there should be about 2,000 involved in all.
“There will be no march, but we will stage a demonstration outside HQ in the afternoon as a visual element of the protest.”
About 79% of those balloted voted ‘yes’ to become involved in action, short of strike action, and 66.8% per cent agreed to industrial action.
Mr McHale said the council issued a notice in October that it would impose a new contract and those who did not sign it would be dismissed on 1 April.
The council says that 95% of staff have agreed to the changes which, it says, would save £4m.
Mr McHale said that further targeted strike action among those groups who are most affected have also been planned.