Unison’s head of local government sends a heartfelt letter to David Cameron warning of the plight of one million local government workers who earn less than the official poverty line
Dear Mr Cameron,
With Christmas around the corner, I thought you would be keen to know how 1.5 million of your citizens across England, Wales and Northern Ireland are feeling as the festive season approaches. They are a significant group of voters, most with families and friends, whose opinion you must surely value.
I speak here of local government workers – many of whom will be caring for the elderly, providing meals-on-wheels, gritting roads and maintaining vital amenities while we all tuck in to turkey and Christmas pud (perhaps caviar, pheasant and a splash of Bollie for you?). Three-quarters of them are women by the way and since your coalition hasn't been too popular with the fairer sex in recent times, I hope my letter might also help you to understand why.
Let me introduce myself. I am Unison's head of local government and the lead negotiator for the trade unions on the National Joint Council for Local Government Services (NJC for short) – a rather retro title I agree, but a body with a noble purpose. It was established after World War Two to maintain industrial harmony and negotiate pay and conditions for local government and school support workers.
I suspect you may not have noticed, but times have been very tough indeed for them in recent years. Once highly regarded and certainly better rewarded for the crucial work they do, they are now numbered among the lowest-paid workers in our society. Indeed, their earnings have plummeted by 18% in real terms since your government took power, while they have carried on doing the work of their 450,000 colleagues councils have been forced to 'let go'.
One million of them earn below your government's 'poverty' line of £21,000 a year. And you might be even more shocked to hear that over half a million – that's 510,000 to be precise – earn less than the Living Wage of £7.65 an hour. I have heard you call the Living Wage 'an idea whose time has come', so I am so sorry to tell you that it hasn't come anywhere near that half a million local government and school support workers.
Of course, I am aware that your government has focused its 'austerity' regime on local government. And as a trade union negotiator I am only too conscious of the strain that this is placing on local councils facing the loss of half their budgets so it's hard to blame them.
This is particularly true of Labour councils like Liverpool, Newcastle, Birmingham and Oldham, which face being reduced to statutory service providers only – or bankruptcy. Thank goodness that Surrey and Wokingham are being looked after.
However, your plan to reduce local government to a skeleton service does not itself explain why you feel that council and school support workers should be reduced to relying on Unison's welfare fund, food banks, payday loans and hand-outs from families and friends to survive. Perhaps you hadn't realised.
Sadly, many of them face the festive season with fear and sadness at not being able to give their children and families the sort of Christmas they deserve. I realise that this might be difficult for you to understand, but with energy costs rising at the rate of 9% and transport by 5%, you might imagine that buying presents and festive food on £6.45 an hour is a tad challenging.
In fact, in a recent survey of 14,705 of Unison's local government members, 53% had debts – 29% of them over £10,000. This is not just true of the lowest paid, but social workers, planners, engineers, nursery nurses and economic development officers – all of them knowing that Christmas and 2014 will be tinged with 'austerity'.
It's not just basic pay that has fallen either. Sixty percent of councils have cut car allowances, meaning that social workers, home carers, housing officers an others who have to clock up substantial mileage now subsidise their employers. Others have had unsocial hours pay lopped, meaning that night and weekend work is now paid at basic rates only, while others now have less sick pay or have to pay to park at work.
Added together, these cuts don't leave much for festive fare or the latest Xbox. Since most local government workers are women, this puts them under great strain when they know their children will go short.
No wonder the gender pay gap is widening so fast and no wonder that applications to Unison's welfare fund for winter heating payments from our local government members has increased five-fold this year. Part-time women workers report having their hours cut and having to take on three jobs to get by too. Perhaps this could explain why the coalition's popularity is not running high among women.
So, dear Prime Minister, that's why Unison and the other local government unions have lodged a pay claim for a minimum of an extra £1 an hour for our members from 1 April next year. In fact, we will now need £1.20 an hour to bring the bottom pay rate of £6.45 up to the level of your beloved Living Wage. But before that pre-Christmas tipple you're enjoying goes down the wrong way, please let me explain that our claim is very affordable indeed.
The New Policy Institute – a highly regarded think-tank – has worked out that the Treasury would save 55% of the cost of our claim as a result of extra 'take' in taxes, national insurance and savings on in-work benefits. That's £950m – around 5% of the current pay bill. If you and the Chancellor were to agree over a brandy or two to repay the savings made by the Treasury to councils, then we would all be motoring our way to a very much happier Christmas indeed.
As it looks now, our members face the prospect of a further decline in their earnings next year and the economy will be hit further by their reduced spending power. They will be gathering across England, Wales and Northern Ireland on 18 December to 'Strike A Chord' for local government pay and sing our very own version of 'In The Bleak Midwinter'.
Let me share the first two lines with you: ‘In the bleak midwinter council workers' pay, Won’t buy Christmas presents – there really is no way...’
So please send Santa with a promise to look after your hard-working local servants better in 2014. And enjoy that Bollie...
Yours Sincerely,
Heather Wakefield
