As local government negotiates a tough pay settlement, Brian Strutton reminds us not to forget the local authority staff
As I write, GMB and the other local government services trade unions are consulting members over the 2009 pay offer.
On the table is a national 1% pay increase. It comes with a little more money for the lowest paid, and a little more minimum leave entitlement for some staff.
Some councils don’t like the level of the offer and to be honest, trade union members aren’t all that impressed with it either – which taken together tends to suggest that the negotiating balance is about right.
But, if recent comments are anything to go by, there seems to be confusion among employers about the pay negotiations which got us here. Some of the Tories are washing their hands of the pay offer, simultaneous to wringing the necks of their national negotiators. The councillor for Sutton Vesey ward (Birmingham City Council) warns that 1% is immediate ruination, although apparently, 0.5% wasn’t.
Given the hysteria, it seems worth recapping how we have arrived at this point, and what the pay proposal actually amounts to.
Readers will remember that the trade unions rejected a previous offer by the employers – 0.5% – back in April. After that, we got down to serious negotiations.
A new and improved package was worked out. It looked practicable, so the employers’ negotiators took it to their political bosses, the Conservative-controlled Local Government Association (LGA), at the end of May.
Not unusually, the politicians were split. Some seemed content to stall indefinitely. But with trade unions and sensible-minded councils pressing for a resolution and crucially, with no consensus over an alternative, the Tory leaders eventually passed the buck. They delegated the decision to the employers’ side of the National Joint Council (NJC), authorising it to make the call and so break the impasse.
Every councillor was aware of what was under consideration. The unions had written to tell them. The Tories knew it, and they also knew what would happen next. The employers’ side agreed to table the 1% offer. There was no surprise. No mystery. No secrecy.
Nor does the offer itself warrant a very strong reaction. Other local government employees are receiving considerably more this year.
Sir Steve Bullock, chair of the LGA’s HR panel, has correctly pointed out that 1% is well below the ‘going rate’ in the public sector. NHS workers are getting 2.4%, teachers 2.3%, and police 2.6%.
The offer is below what most authorities actually budgeted for – just above 2%, on average – and what most opted-out councils are paying this year (Surrey CC 2.75%, Buckinghamshire CC 2.25%). Birmingham City Council’s member for equalities and HR, Cllr Alan Rudge complains that 1% will cost the city £6m. But this is only half what it budgeted for, and merely reflects the size of that authority. He should use the money saved to protect jobs and services in these difficult times.
Cllr Rudge suggests that his employees deserve to be at the sharpest end of the recession, having enjoyed their ‘share [of] the good times’ (The MJ, 13 August). What good times? Never mind the fact that local government saw below-inflation pay increases during the boom years.
He also calls for a new pay structure, one which allows Cllr Rudge to do exactly what he pleases. In place of the national bargaining arrangements which have provided stability and consistency, Cllr Rudge wants to consolidate his Birmingham utopia – actually one of the country’s worst examples of industrial relations meltdown, with strikes, imposition and litigation on all sides. Hardly a vision that recommends itself.
There are undoubtedly big challenges ahead for national bargaining in local government services. Look at education, where we have created the School Support Staff Negotiating Body to recognise the extended roles and responsibilities of the wider school workforce. Look at social work, and the pressing need to tackle recruitment and retention. Look at single status, incomplete in many areas.
In this context, fractions of a percent on a national pay award are near-irrelevancies. If anything, national bargaining has been too focused on the annual pay round and not enough on the skills, deployment and training needs of staff. There is much which needs to be done, if we could get away from the annual bun fight.
So, why the hullabaloo over a 1% pay offer? Is this the grandstanding of a few local Tories? Or is this Conservative Central Office speaking through the corporeal form of Cllr Rudge?
Either way, Tory manoeuvring over this year’s pay offer is straightforwardly about power and politics. The Conservatives are on the rise, and making threats. Their belligerent talk of pay clampdowns and pension cuts shows a shameful disregard for local government staff.
The pay offer, still out for consultation, is fair. No amount of ‘Rudgery’ can prove otherwise.
Brian Strutton is national secretary at the GMB
On the table is a national 1% pay increase. It comes with a little more money for the lowest paid, and a little more minimum leave entitlement for some staff.
Some councils don’t like the level of the offer and to be honest, trade union members aren’t all that impressed with it either – which taken together tends to suggest that the negotiating balance is about right.
But, if recent comments are anything to go by, there seems to be confusion among employers about the pay negotiations which got us here. Some of the Tories are washing their hands of the pay offer, simultaneous to wringing the necks of their national negotiators. The councillor for Sutton Vesey ward (Birmingham City Council) warns that 1% is immediate ruination, although apparently, 0.5% wasn’t.
Given the hysteria, it seems worth recapping how we have arrived at this point, and what the pay proposal actually amounts to.
Readers will remember that the trade unions rejected a previous offer by the employers – 0.5% – back in April. After that, we got down to serious negotiations.
A new and improved package was worked out. It looked practicable, so the employers’ negotiators took it to their political bosses, the Conservative-controlled Local Government Association (LGA), at the end of May.
Not unusually, the politicians were split. Some seemed content to stall indefinitely. But with trade unions and sensible-minded councils pressing for a resolution and crucially, with no consensus over an alternative, the Tory leaders eventually passed the buck. They delegated the decision to the employers’ side of the National Joint Council (NJC), authorising it to make the call and so break the impasse.
Every councillor was aware of what was under consideration. The unions had written to tell them. The Tories knew it, and they also knew what would happen next. The employers’ side agreed to table the 1% offer. There was no surprise. No mystery. No secrecy.
Nor does the offer itself warrant a very strong reaction. Other local government employees are receiving considerably more this year.
Sir Steve Bullock, chair of the LGA’s HR panel, has correctly pointed out that 1% is well below the ‘going rate’ in the public sector. NHS workers are getting 2.4%, teachers 2.3%, and police 2.6%.
The offer is below what most authorities actually budgeted for – just above 2%, on average – and what most opted-out councils are paying this year (Surrey CC 2.75%, Buckinghamshire CC 2.25%). Birmingham City Council’s member for equalities and HR, Cllr Alan Rudge complains that 1% will cost the city £6m. But this is only half what it budgeted for, and merely reflects the size of that authority. He should use the money saved to protect jobs and services in these difficult times.
Cllr Rudge suggests that his employees deserve to be at the sharpest end of the recession, having enjoyed their ‘share [of] the good times’ (The MJ, 13 August). What good times? Never mind the fact that local government saw below-inflation pay increases during the boom years.
He also calls for a new pay structure, one which allows Cllr Rudge to do exactly what he pleases. In place of the national bargaining arrangements which have provided stability and consistency, Cllr Rudge wants to consolidate his Birmingham utopia – actually one of the country’s worst examples of industrial relations meltdown, with strikes, imposition and litigation on all sides. Hardly a vision that recommends itself.
There are undoubtedly big challenges ahead for national bargaining in local government services. Look at education, where we have created the School Support Staff Negotiating Body to recognise the extended roles and responsibilities of the wider school workforce. Look at social work, and the pressing need to tackle recruitment and retention. Look at single status, incomplete in many areas.
In this context, fractions of a percent on a national pay award are near-irrelevancies. If anything, national bargaining has been too focused on the annual pay round and not enough on the skills, deployment and training needs of staff. There is much which needs to be done, if we could get away from the annual bun fight.
So, why the hullabaloo over a 1% pay offer? Is this the grandstanding of a few local Tories? Or is this Conservative Central Office speaking through the corporeal form of Cllr Rudge?
Either way, Tory manoeuvring over this year’s pay offer is straightforwardly about power and politics. The Conservatives are on the rise, and making threats. Their belligerent talk of pay clampdowns and pension cuts shows a shameful disregard for local government staff.
The pay offer, still out for consultation, is fair. No amount of ‘Rudgery’ can prove otherwise.
Brian Strutton is national secretary at the GMB
