GMB, the union for public service workers, conducted an analysis of official data from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) and found that the number of employees in Local Authorities fell from 2,559,000 in Q1 2010 to 2,178,500 in Q3 2012. This is fall of 380,500 or -14.7% in numbers employed by the councils since the general election in 2010. Most of these are job losses arise from freezing vacancies, redundancies and natural wastage resulting from budget cuts. Some of the fall in numbers arises due to movement between public and private sectors. Meanwhile, the remaining local government employees are fighting for a wage increase, with employers refusing to exceed a 1% increase offer.
English: http://www.gmb.org.uk/newsroom/latest_news/council_jobs_down ... ;
http://www.unison.org.uk/asppresspack/pressrelease ...
For more information, please contact the editor Jan Cremers, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS) cbn-aias@uva.nl or the communications officer at the ETUI, Mariya Nikolova mnikolova@etui.org. For previous issues of the Collective bargaining newsletter please visit http://www.etui.org/E-Newsletters/Collective-bargaining-newsletter. You may find further information on the ETUI at www.etui.org, and on the AIAS at www.uva-aias.net.