Unison’s head of local government has praised the successes of yesterday’s day of protest, while confirming her support for similar action in the future.
Local government workers staged a national demonstration on Tuesday as part of a continuing campaign for a £1.20 minimum hourly pay increase and fairer council funding.
Speaking to LocalGov, Unison’s head of local government, Heather Wakefield, said the event was ‘a great success’ that she would ‘definitely like to see happen again’.
Wakefield applauded the ‘imagination’ of council staff, making doughnuts in Redbridge to ‘show the hole in local government’s budget’ and putting up soup kitchens for low paid employees in Nottinghamshire.
‘It made members feel they have power to do something and gets across the message to the public and makes people feel like they are not on their own,’ she added.
However, she urged councils to recognise the financial difficulties faced by their workforce and maintain conditions at a local level.
Unison has said local government workers have seen an 18% fall in pay since 2010, enduing a ‘devastating’ three-year freeze followed by a ‘miserly’ 1% increase in wages last year.
‘At the very least, councils can stop attacking conditions at a local level,’ Wakefield said.
‘When you look at the way local government reserves have increased phenomenally over the last two years I think councils have made a political choice to put money into reserves rather than into the workforce, which is getting ever smaller and working ever harder and being paid ever less.’
‘They are making choices and can afford this increase if central government were to recycle the money it would gain from meeting our claim,’ she said.
The Unison local government committee is meeting next week and will decide whether further action will now be taken to address pay and funding – Wakefield confirmed.
Unison, the GMB and Unite are meeting employers to discuss their pay claim on 14 February after submitting their demands in November.
‘I’ve written to Cameron, Osborne and Pickles about pay, pointing out that 55% of the cost of meeting our claim would be recouped by the Treasury through increased tax and national insurance,’ Wakefield said. ‘It’s very affordable as well as being very necessary for our members.’
‘Yesterday showed great imagination, spirit and anger about what’s happening,’ she said. ‘I think our message has got across. What we don’t yet know is how the employers are going to respond when we meet them on the 14th.'
Derby City Council leader, Paul Bayliss, said that supporting Unison’s campaign for fair pay for public sector workers was ‘the right and proper thing to do’.
‘I think most councils support workers,’ Bayliss said. ‘From the point of view of a Labour controlled administration, we do appreciate [the workers’] hard work and want to support them.’
‘We are bringing the Living Wage from this April. That’s certainly important because everybody’s then at a reasonable point to provide for their families. Also - of course - they are spending in the local economy, so that gives the local economy a boost,’ he added.
