UNISON is calling on the secretary of state of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) Thérèse Coffey to meet to resolve the current Environment Agency (EA) pay dispute.
EA pay was frozen in 2021 – with staff having no pay rise from July 2020.
Staff in the agency have seen their pay eroded by over 20% in the last decade and are now “working one day in every five for nothing”. UNISON members have voted to take strike action over pay for the first time this week.
Workers who maintain important safety structures such as the Thames Barrier, coastal sea defences and those protecting communities from floods, water pollution, spills, waste fires and fly-tipping will walk out on Wednesday 18 January from 8am to 5pm.
UNISON national secretary for the environment Donna Rowe-Merriman said: “Dedicated staff have seen their salaries eroded and the cost of living crisis sees many at breaking point.
“The public must be astounded that as flood waters rise across England, the government is making no attempts to try and resolve the dispute and reach an agreement.
“The sum allocated to the agency was woefully inadequate to recruit and retain skilled public servants in key roles. The agency is seeing the impact of low pay on staff recruitment and retention in a similar way to that seen across the NHS – but is not seeking engagement to try and address the key issues.’
The government’s pay remit was set before summer 2022 and did not take inflation or spiralling energy bills into account.
This remit is non-negotiable and the agency has no delegated power to amend without prior approval from DEFRA, leaving staff with little alternative than to take industrial action to try and seek an improved offer as wages fail to keep up with living costs.
Ms Rowe-Merriman continued: “Last week we saw government ministers meeting with unions to attempt to find a resolution to other ongoing disputes. We have had no response to repeated requests to meet with various DEFRA ministers to outline the key issues in the agency and to seek an improved offer.
“The lack of any engagement from the secretary of state to try and find a resolution to this dispute when the two largest trade unions are taking industrial action is unfathomable.”
Where there is a threat to life or property from incidents such as a major flood, officers will step in as emergency ‘life and limb cover’ has been agreed.
