It is hard to understand why both central and local government have treated female council workers with such disdain. The chancellor should announce a rescue package in today’s Autumn Statement
‘N30’ is approaching fast. Yesterday’s polls reported that almost one third of the public now consider industrial action over the coalition’s attack on public sector pensions to be justified. Talk of ‘the strike’ is popping up everywhere – from the terraces at Stamford Bridge on Saturday to the local kebab shop last night.
So while there is a growing – and welcome – realisation that all is not gold plated or star spangled in the retirement world of public service workers, I thought the time might be ripe to locate the dispute over the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) – the largest of the schemes under attack – in the overall state of pay for the mainstream local government worker. Just what will it mean for her to pay more for her pension?
Right then. Just in case any of you remains of the view that £4,000 a year is an over-generous pension for the average bloke employed by your local council or that his female colleague should count herself lucky to retire on £2,800 per annum, take a close look at the rest of their ‘remuneration package’ and ask yourself whether that too is over-generous. The answer has to be ‘no’.
While there is ample justification for strike action over changes to a pension scheme that collects £4bn a year more than it pays out and is not in any kind of trouble, there are equally strong grounds for complaint over the sheer neglect of council employees over the last decade and beyond.
Last month the unions – Unison, GMB and Unite – lodged our 2012-2013 pay claim for the 1.7 million workers covered by the National Joint Council for Local Government Services – that’s everyone from the finance officer to the teaching assistant, the senior social worker to the part-time cleaner and the civil engineer to the care assistant. Just under half of them work part-time and 75% are women.
Our claim is for a ‘substantial increase ...that recognises the financial hardship being suffered...as a consequence of inflation and the failure of the Local Government Employers to award £250 to those earning below £21,000 as embodied in Government policy’.
For those of you who don’t know, NJC employees have not had a pay increase since 1 April 2009. The Local Government Employers imposed a pay freeze in April 2010 – one year before the rest of the public sector saw its lolly frozen – and continued it from April 2011, even though our members have been languishing at the bottom of the public sector pay league for donkey’s years.
Between April 2009 and August 2011, RPI rose by 11.63%. That’s an 11.63% pay cut then. In effect, the two-year freeze has wiped out the effect of all pay increases relative to inflation since 1997-98. And now – with inflation forecasts high – our members are being asked to pay 3% more in LGPS contributions to help reduce the deficit.
It might not have been quite so bad if those below the government’s ‘poverty pay’ line of £21,000 had been lucky enough to get the £250 compensation payment awarded to the rest of the public sector. After all, it was promised by the Chancellor in his budget statement:
‘I extend the protection to cover the 1.7 million public servants who earn less than £21,000...They will each receive a flat-rate pay rise worth £250 in both these years (2011-12 and 2012-13), so that those on the very lowest salaries will get a proportionately larger rise’.
What’s more, George Osborne confirmed in a letter to yours truly that it would be paid. Sadly, the money to back his promise wasn’t forthcoming, the Local Government Employers thought differently and our lowest-paid members were denied what would have been a modest 2% increase for the 83,000 women on the bottom rate of £6.30 pence an hour. That’s £12,145 a year by the way. According to the employers themselves, a shameful 69% of NJC employees earn less than £21,000.
And while we’re at it, let’s compare NJC pay with earnings across the economy and the rest of the public sector. According to the Local Government Association’s own Earnings Survey for 2010/11, gross full-time equivalent pay for women in England and Wales was £20,558. That’s £2,944 a year more than NJC Woman on £17,614.
Despite undertaking some of the most arduous, emotionally demanding and socially useful work that a society under strain demands, NJC workers have inevitably fallen even further behind other public sector workers with the denial of the £250. Let’s compare the current bottom rate with comparable occupational groups in other sectors:
NJC £12,145
Higher Education £13,203
NHS £13,903
DWP £14,005
Probation £14,182
HMRC £14,225
Police Support £14,529
Enough said on NJC pay rates. Let me just add that councils in high-cost areas like Hampshire, Southampton and Portsmouth are seeking to reduce NJC pay even further at local level and our members working at night in care jobs or weekends in libraries (that haven’t been shut down) are having unsocial hours payments removed. NJC car allowances haven’t been increased this year, despite soaring fuel costs and many councils have reduced them to HMRC rates. Parental rights are already poorer than in other sectors and per capita spending on training has dipped below £200 per annum – most of which is spent on managers.
As Jimmy Cliff famously sang, there are more questions than answers about the long-term disdain shown for a largely female workforce which is so critical to societal well-being and which has helped local government survive and thrive against all the pay odds. Both central and local government regimes of all political hues have considered it reasonable to push many of our members below the breadline, with the latest round of unsustainable coalition cuts the final straw.
Would this have happened if three quarters of them had been men, doing the things that men do, rather than women doing the things that women do – educating kids and caring for our old folk, running libraries and fronting-up service delivery points starved of resources? Why does a bargaining structure designed to instil partnership working and industrial harmony cease to negotiate? How do we and the employers stop the rot? Can it possibly get any worse?
The simple answer is ‘yes’. The Local Government Employers have yet to respond to our pay claim. These same NJC workers are now being asked to contribute through increased LGPS contributions, a higher retirement age and a reduced pension to £900m worth of further ‘savings’, which are designed to reduce employers’ pension contributions and facilitate another council tax freeze. With the National Minimum Wage biting at the heels of NJC pay rates, recruitment problems in social work and other jobs growing alongside rising demands on councils, the future of the local government workforce lies in the balance.
It’s time to tip the scales the other way. Let’s start by recognising that £900m has already been saved...And perhaps the Chancellor could announce an NJC rescue package today.
