Council leaders face autumn strikes, union warns

Members of Unite the Union, employed by local authorities in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, have overwhelmingly rejected the local government employers’ pay offer for 2024 to 2025.
  
Members, who cover many frontline roles including refuse collection workers, housing workers and care staff, returned a 85 per cent rejection of the pay offer which is worth a £1,290 flat rate, plus 2.5 per cent on allowances. 

Unite said the offer fails to tackle poverty pay or reverse the years of real terms pay cuts experienced by local government workers.
 
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “Our members undertake vital frontline roles that ensure that local communities are well maintained, safe and attractive places to live, they have drawn a line in the sand and will not accept any further erosion of their pay.”
 
Th union is now undertaking a full industrial action ballot for its local authority members. Balloting will began on 30 August and if workers vote for industrial action then strikes could begin later this autumn.
 
Local authority workers have seen their pay decline by over a quarter in real terms.
 
Unite national officer Clare Keogh said: “Council leaders need to wake up and be aware they are facing an autumn of strikes unless local government employers return to the negotiating table and propose a vastly improved pay offer.
 
“Our members are heavily invested in the communities where they live and work. But more than a decade of real terms pay cuts mean that many are being forced to vote with their feet and seek employment elsewhere, as council pay has become so low that they can’t pay their bills.”