Council workers represented by Unite have overwhelmingly rejected the employers’ pay offer of 3.2% from 1 April 2025. The offer was made without negotiation, prompting Unite to consult its members in a ballot where 84% voted against. The unions GMB and Unison also recommended rejection, highlighting the offer’s failure to address a decade of real-terms wage decline. Their consultative ballots closed on 20 June. Since 2010, local authority workers have seen their pay fall by around 30% in real terms, while six councils have gone bankrupt and over 40% of councils are at risk of insolvency. The unions argue that without new central government funding and debt relief, councils will remain under pressure to cut services and suppress wages.
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For more information, please contact Paul de Beer or Oana Ciuca, De Burcht (Scientific Bureau for the Dutch Trade Union Movement) p.t.debeer@uva.nl or the Head of communications at the ETUI, Mehmet Koksal mkoksal@etui.org. For previous full issues of the Collective bargaining newsletter please visit https://www.etui.org/Newsletters/Collective-bargaining-newsletter or consult the archive with all articles in our database at www.cbnarchive.eu.
You may find further information on the ETUI at www.etui.org.