08 March 2002
A last-minute increase in the offer from the Employers Organisation – from 2.5% to 3% – failed to produce a breakthrough during the meeting on February 28. Unison, the GMB and T&G immediately rejected it as 'bitterly disappointing'.
Unison's head of local government, Malcolm Wing, said the offer would be put to the unions' 1.2 million members working in local government, but all three would be recommending its rejection.
The unions are demanding a 6% increase or £1,750, whichever is the greater, for all workers.
'We have agreed to consult our members on the 3% offer but will recommend that it be rejected. If our members reject it, there is likely to be support for industrial action as the only way to bring the employers back to the negotiating table,' he said.
But the EO hit out at the unions' 'unaffordable' pay claim. A spokesman warned that councils would have to consider drastic measures to foot the bill for such an ambitious claim.
'Their demands would add £80 to every council tax bill in the country. We don't want to go down that road, or down the route of sacking some workers to pay the wage bill for the others,' he said.
The unions will consult their members throughout March and the results should be known by the beginning of April. If the employers' offer is rejected, a ballot for industrial action would follow shortly afterwards, with the first wave of strikes likely to happen in May.
PFmar2002
