09 May 2003
Traditional employer-staff differences over local government pay re-emerged this week after the trade union and council representatives completed their submissions to the body set up to investigate allegations of low and unequal pay across the sector.
The three main local government unions, Unison, the GMB and the T&G, have written to the Local Government Pay Commission calling for a pay rise of £1.50 per hour for all staff to offset 'endemic recruitment and retention problems, low and unequal pay and high levels of demoralisation'.
The Confederation of British Industry and the Employers Organisation, meanwhile, called on the commission to back the government's plan to introduce regional pay bargaining across public services because it offers 'a reasonable solution to cost-related problems for all employers'.
The unions' submission to the commission, chaired by academic Linda Dickens and set up in the wake of last year's national strikes across local government, claimed a £6.50 minimum hourly wage should merely be the starting point of reforms.
Dickens' team will report its findings in September 2003. They will form the basis of pay settlements from 2004.
Union leaders also called for an end to the 'dramatic inequalities' in pay between men and women in the sector, as well as changes to part-time workers' pay and conditions.
'A [national] minimum wage of £6.50 an hour would allow workers to meet this standard without dependence on Tax Credits, saving the Treasury money which could be channelled into workforce training and development,' the submission claims.
But the EO rejects a national pay framework. Spokesman Peter Monk, deputy leader of Suffolk County Council, said: 'We are 400 employers, not one, offering a diversity of products and services to an equally diverse customer base. We are not advocating a single approach to pay and reward because different strategies will suit different local needs.'
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