Sheffield City Council has rejected trade union claims it sent ‘redundancy notices’ to 8,500 of its staff.
GMB claimed the notice covered changes to terms and conditions and job levels, and blamed the Government’s policies for potentially costing jobs.
But the council said this was ‘misleading’ and revealed it was merely following national guidance as part of ongoing negotiations.
Paul Kenny, GMB general secretary speaking from the Labour Party conference in Manchester, said: ‘These official notices for 8,500 staff at Sheffield, coming on top of the notices for 26,000 in Birmingham, nail the lie that this government’s policies will not cost jobs and will lead to reduced services for the public and inferior terms and conditions for staff. Service users and service providers in both Sheffield and Birmingham will fight to protect services and jobs in both major cities.’
But a spokeswoman for Sheffield City Council said: ‘There is a process that, by law, we have to follow and certain formalities have to be complied with and that includes issuing what is known as a HR1 notice to the Government and shared with the trade unions. We are now at that stage.
‘This statutory notice is part of the formal and technical process when two parties haven’t yet reached a collective agreement. We are still continuing to meet with the trade unions and are still working towards a collective agreement.’
