18 January 2008
Trade union Unison has warned Birmingham City Council to 'pull back from the brink' as more than 20,000 staff ballot for strike action over the imposition of new contracts.
The dispute has emerged from the 1997 national single-status agreement, which attempted to ensure equal pay and conditions for men and women doing work of equal value.
Birmingham council – England's largest local authority – has issued 27,000 staff with new contracts, which 70% of staff have refused to sign. At the end of December, the council issued a formal 90-day notice of redundancies, aiming to terminate all current contracts and re-employ staff on the new terms from April.
Unison, alongside the Unite and GMB unions, is now balloting members for strike action, scheduled for February 5. Unison argues that thousands of workers – predominantly women – stand to lose between £1,000 and £18,000 a year.
Refuse collectors could lose 50% of their pay, while 4,000 cleaners will get a rise of just £1 a week and home care assistants could see their pay reduced from more than £16,000 a year to £13,500 a year.
The council said more than 45% of staff would have a salary rise through the new structure, with 41% seeing no change and 14% losing out. Those due to lose pay would have their salaries frozen until 2010, when they would be further cut to reach the new level if necessary.
At a rally in the city on January 13, Unison deputy general secretary Keith Sonnet said: 'I warn Birmingham council to pull back from the brink or face a damaging conflict with the unions and its own workforce.
'There is no way that Unison could tolerate the wholesale sacking of an entire workforce or the imposition of a new pay structure that does not deliver equal pay but ends with thousands losing thousands.'
The council was behaving in a 'disgraceful, dictatorial and provocative manner', he added.
A spokesman for the council said: 'We are disappointed that there is talk of industrial action. This exercise is about righting decades of inequality, underpay and pay discrepancies, principles which I am sure everyone, including the unions, will support.'
PFjan2008
