United Kingdom - Local government employers fail to make pay offer - January 24, 2011

The three local government unions, UNISON, Unite and GMB, representing more than 1.6 million workers, have criticised local government employers for failing to respond to the unions’ pay claim covering April 2011-March 2012. The unions pointed out that in 2010 pay was frozen and the employers did not even pay the UKP 250 (€290) payment for those earning under UKP 21,000 (€ 24,380) a year that had been part of the government’s budget. Furthermore, local government workers had suffered below-inflation increases for five years and were now looking at an increase in pension contributions of 3%. Heather Wakefield, UNISON Head of Local Government, said: “Our members – people who provide vital local services like home care, who work as teaching assistants and bin men – are facing severe hardship” (See also this Collective Bargaining Newsletter Year 3 October 2010).

English: http://www.epsu.org/cob/398;

http://www.unison.org.uk/asppresspack/pressrelease_view.asp?id=2119

This article was published in the Collective Bargaining Newsletter. It aims to facilitate information exchange between trade unions and to support the work of ETUC's collective bargaining committee. For more information, please contact the editor Maarten van Klaveren, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS) M.vanKlaveren@uva.nl. You may find further information on the ETUI at www.etui.org, and on the AIAS at www.uva-aias.net. © ETUI aisbl, Brussels 2011.