Category: Cosla Pay Offer

Important Information – Local Government Pay Briefing

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UNISON Stirling Branch Local Government Pay Briefing

UNISON has sent notice to Stirling Council, and all other local authorities of its intent to ballot for industrial action over pay and the failure to make an acceptable pay offer for this year.

Our pay claim was submitted in February in good time for an offer to be made in time for the implementation date of 1st April.

Only one offer has been made thus far, despite our rejection. The 2% offered to all employees, absolutely ignoring that inflation is currently sitting at 9% and expected to increase further. This is a pay cut in real terms.

There is no recognition of the cost of living crisis affecting everyone and certainly no recognition of the work you have and continue to do throughout the pandemic. Supporting the public and ensuring the people who rely on our services were supported through one of the hardest times in their lives.

This offer of 2% does not even come close to the Scottish Government Pay Policy, even so inflation has run rampant since that was developed.

Remember councillors were given a 5.2% increase to their annual allowance.

We are conducting what is deemed a disaggregated ballot, with individual ballots being held in each local authority at the same time with the same groups of workers.

We will be balloting all Waste, School Staff and Early Years Staff.

These groups of workers have been selected to have the maximum effect disrupting services to bring the employer back round the table. Scottish Government funds councils and we need them to increase funding to councils so we also have to get their attention.

We are asking all Waste, School and Early Years’ staff to look out for your ballot paper in the post, it will be in a blue envelope.

It is vitally important that you complete it and post it in the envelope provided.

Trade unions are required by law to deliver a 50% response rate before we can take any action.

If we do not deliver 50% our members are showing our employers and the Scottish Government that they do not care about pay and our employers will know that we cannot deliver and our strength to negotiate decent pay for you will be gone. Poor pay will be a thing of the future.

By voting in the ballot and returning your paper you will be influencing your own pay and the pay of every other council worker for years to come

Every single ballot counts, even if you don’t want to support the action it is essential you return your ballot paper. We do not want to be short of the 50% by one vote.

Staff not included in this ballot it is essential that your fellow workers feel supported, they are voting on taking action for all our pay.

We need you to promote this action and encourage those being balloted to return their papers.

If you are in the position to, we ask you to consider donating to our strike fund, to ensure that workers taking action on behalf of all of us are not out of pocket.

Remember it is time for every one of us to step up. To ensure that both Councils and Scottish Government

  • Recognise, our workforce
  • Respect the work you do in supporting our communities
  • Reward you for the work you do

As ever we welcome questions and comments from everyone

Please feel free to get in touch e-mail address  thomsonl34s@stirling.gov.u

Employer’s fails – acceptable pay offer

Given the employer’s failure to put forward an acceptable pay offer by the review date of 1st April we are seeking your views on whether you are willing to take some form of action, up to and including strike action, in pursuit of an improved and acceptable pay offer.

UNISON’s Scottish Local Government Committee is recommending that you vote YES to indicate your willingness to take some form of action in pursuit of an improved and acceptable offer from the employer.

We believe this is now the only way to achieve movement in the employer’s position.

If you’ve not received an e-mail with your voting link please, in the first instance, check your junk/spam folders. If it’s not there and you still have not received it by 15th April please call 0800 0 857 857 or log in to MyUnison (https://www.unison.org.uk/my-unison/) to check that the details we hold for you are up to date.

If you don’t have an e-mail address on your system/your e-mail address has recently changed you can still vote as long as your membership records are updated before 18th April 2022 you will receive an e-mail with your voting link.

To update your details call 0800 0 857 857 or log in to MyUnison

If the system tells you that you have already voted when you haven’t this is a safety feature to help prevent duplicate voting. We suspect this happens when you have clicked on the ballot link and closed it before voting and the system then blocks the IP address. Members should clear their cookies and try the link again. It should then work.