Coventry ‘single status’ battle

Action now to stop the pay cuts!

"YOU’RE TAKING my mortgage off me" shouted one bin worker at a Tory
councillor before the last Coventry council meeting.

Coventry council workers in the Socialist Party

Trade unionists – mainly from the TGWU, had turned up to lobby the council
about the mostly unchanged single status deal that will rob many staff of
between £1,700 and £8,000 a year.

The council’s chief executive proudly announced that the number of losers
had been reduced from 2,091 to 1,500! But one loser is too many.

The top officers have conveniently exempted themselves. We would love to
see how they would react to a 10 or 15% pay cut.

Now, emboldened by the fact that North East Lincolnshire council is giving
staff "sign or you are sacked" contracts, the council may try a different way
of imposing the deal after unions, quite correctly, refused to ballot on their
new proposal.

The unions must refute this threat. As well as threatening legal action
against any move, they should now be preparing the workforce for industrial
action. The council know that an ultimatum could create an angry mood for
action. If the council unions do not now mobilise for this, there is a risk of
being derailed into protracted legal battles rather than the plans being
unceremoniously thrown out.

Socialist Party members warned of the danger of the unions getting in too
deep, by negotiating a deal that is fundamentally rotten. Now they must act
quickly.

Stop press:

Council drivers circulated the city late on 31 January, delivering
documents about the new Single Status proposals to the home of every
councillor, giving the bare seven days notice for an extraordinary council
meeting on 8 February.

At the meeting the council’s Tory leaders will seek to impose essentially
the same new pay structure that was rejected by employees in a ballot last
October by a majority of two to one. If councillors vote to impose the plan,
Coventry would become the largest council in the country to force its
employees to take pay cuts.

Hundreds of angry council workers are expected to lobby the meeting on 8
February.

Socialist councillor Dave Nellist told the socialist: "The papers which
councillors have now received estimate that 3,500 council workers should
receive pay rises to give them the proper rate for the job, and I agree that
should be done as soon as possible. But not by cuts of up to £10,000 a year in
the wages of 1,500 of their colleagues.

"The papers estimate for example that 62 workers need a pay rise of over
£5,000 a year – and propose that should be provided for by 56 workers taking a
pay cut of over £5,000 a year. That is morally bankrupt.

"I expect a huge lobby of the council next Tuesday. And if councillors vote
for this reprehensible package I expect the three trade unions, UNISON, TGWU
and GMB, will be calling for industrial action. If they do, Socialist
councillors and Socialist Party members will support the workforce 100%."