UNISON, the UK’s largest union, representing 600,000 local government employees today called for an end to the damaging freeze and squeeze on local government pay: Heather Wakefield, UNISON Head of Local Government, said:
“Enough is enough. Our members have had to endure a three-year pay freeze whilst the cost of living has rocketed, leaving everyone from social workers to librarians out of pocket and families struggling to survive.
Employers have offered council workers a below-inflation, 1% pay increase but, in return, want cuts to core conditions. Since 2009 inflation has stripped 16% off the value of workers’ wages, around 300,000 jobs have gone and many councils have made a whole raft of cuts to unsocial hours and overtime payments, hours of work, car allowances and redundancy pay. Local government pay is already the lowest in the public sector and over two thirds of staff fall below the government low pay threshold of £21,000 per annum. The bottom rate of pay is just £6.30 per hour and could be outstripped by a new National Minimum Wage in October.
In a hard-hitting email, UNISON has called on councillors across England, Wales and N Ireland to demand that the Local Government Association get back round the table and make a significantly improved pay offer.
Heather Wakefield, went on to say:
“The message to the government should be one of fairness, not favours – we believe the vital work and loyalty of local government workers – a majority of whom are women – is being dangerously underappreciated”
“It should be clear that this continued downward pressure is damaging to all. The Chancellor should use tomorrow’s budget to end the squeeze on pay and help to kick start the economy.
“The Government must wake up to the fact that putting money into the pockets of employees ultimately means more money spent on the highstreet and fed back into local economies”
Notes to Editors
UNISON is asking councillors to consider the following:
– Since 2010, over 260,000 jobs have been lost in local government through redundancies and deletion of vacant posts.
– A recent survey of 14,800 UNISON members showed that more than 80% feel that workplace stress is harming their personal and working lives.
– 55% of UNISON members in our survey have debts of over £5000.
– Many part-time workers have lost Working Tax Credit due to the increase in the hours threshold.
Frozen pay harms the local economy. Local government employees re-spend 52.5 pence in every pound they receive in wages in their local economy.
