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Some of the council’s lowest paid workers are having their wages slashed.
Thousands are losing money – in some cases up to ?35,000 per year.
The Unison, Unite, Ucatt and GMB unions began balloting for strike action on
2 January.
Workers are mobilising for a mass rally to protest against pay cuts on
Saturday 12 January.
In Birmingham, as elsewhere, large sections of the workforce are suffering
pay cuts supposedly in order to fund equal pay for women who have suffered
years of discrimination.
Refusing
Yet at the same time the city council is refusing to give those women the
full six years’ back pay they are entitled to.
The council admits that 12 percent of the workforce will see their wages
cut. But this does not take into account those whose working week is being
extended – a wage cut by other means.
Only 7,000 out of tens of thousands of workers have signed new contracts
issued by the council to force through the new deal. This means that despite
threats of the sack, up to 70 percent of workers have not signed new
contracts.
Chair of the joint trade union committee Steve Foster said, “People have
shown how they feel about this pay system by not signing the forms. They are
the ones who will suffer the heartache of wage losses.
According to the Unite national organiser for public services Peter
Allenson, “Ironically, many women employees in Birmingham will suffer pay
cuts through this uniquely wrong-headed approach to the equality issue by
Birmingham City Council.
“The current proposals are unfair, so it is little wonder that some 70
percent of council employees have either rejected the new contracts or
chosen to ignore them.
In an attempt to try and head off the strike the council is leaking that it
thinking of re-evaluating the refuse workers’ bonus scemes.
Conned
Caroline Johnson from Birmingham Unison said, “Workers are not going to be
conned by this. If the council tries to redefine their roles or push up the
pay grades it will be very difficult to make up the losses they have
suffered.”
Steve Foster added, “I have been to a few meetings at council depots and
they are 100 percent behind the ballot and industrial action.
“I was told at one depot that if they lose a single penny they are out. It
is not just about the pay. This new system brings in a wholesale changes to
working conditions without consulting with us.”
Meanwhile almost a quarter of council workers in Blackburn in north west
England have been told their salaries are to be cut.
The decision was broken to staff by email after council bosses gave the
green light to its new pay scale. Some workers are reporting drops of as
much as ?10,000 per year.
Under the “equal pay settlement”, 5,500 jobs have been evaluated by the
council – 24 percent of salaries will go down, 46 per cent are set to
increase and the remaining 30 percent will stay the same.
Resigned
Unison’s branch secretary has recently resigned, but the union has refused
to comment on whether this was related to the negotiations.
Following the announcement of the new pay scale – given the green light by
the council’s ruling executive board – unions will ballot on whether to
accept the changes.
But one council worker, who did not want to be named, said, “It’s officers
and administration staff in the regeneration department who have been hit
worst.
“People have lost between ?3,000 and ?10,000. Morale is at rock bottom.”
What is the single status deal?
The single status agreement was signed in 1997 by local government employers
and national trade unions.
The deal followed a series of successful employment tribunal cases on equal
pay.
Typically women were doing jobs of equal value to male manual workers, and
had been on the same pay grade as them for many years.
But they were not eligible for bonus payments that the men received, and in
some cases they were getting 40 percent less.
Single status deals are supposed to deliver a common pay scale for all jobs
and harmonisation of conditions.
But the government has refused to give local authorities extra funds to pay
those who gain from the deal.
Every authority was supposed to implement a deal by 1 April 2007.
The local government employers (LGE) claim that fewer than half of English
and Welsh councils have carried out reviews into gender pay inequalities,
nine months after a deadline to do so.
The LGE says just 47 percent have completed pay reviews.
It adds that to end gender pay inequality councils face costs of ?1 billion
for back pay, ?1.5 billion to cover increased pay and ?400 million to
provide pay protection for those who lose out from reviews.
Gordon Brown is refusing to provide the money.
Disracefully schools are to be told to find up to a third of the bill out of
their reserves to compensate classroom assistants and cleaners who have been
systematically underpaid.
Up and down the country single status is being used as an excuse for cuts in
jobs and services.
A system claiming to deliver equal pay for women is delivering cuts in the
pay of already low paid women.
In the absence of a national strategy from the unions to contest single
status, tens of thousands of workers are using the courts to get equal pay.
Thousands more are suing the unions for not representing them.
The fight over single status in Birmingham offers a chance for a national
union-led mobilisation to get equal and fair pay for all in local
government.
Source: http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=13854
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