A symbolic wage offer of 1% for council employees in England, Wales and Northern Ireland who earn more than £14,880 has led to an outraged reaction from the trade union side. The offer could affect more than one million staff and follows a 1% rise last year, after a three-year wage freeze. Those on lower salaries will be offered a "slightly higher increase", the Local Government Association said. Trade union Unison stated that council employees had already endured a ‘devastating three-year pay freeze and then a miserly 1% increase last year, representing a fall in pay in real terms back to the level of the 1990s’. The trade unions launched a joint petition for decent pay in local government.
English: http://www.unison.org.uk/news/local-government-unions-launch-petition ...
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk ...
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.