This is taken from the Unison National Website.
“Local government workers across England, Wales and Northern Ireland have slammed this year’s below-inflation annual pay award, but stopped short of outright industrial action at this stage, putting employers and the government in the ‘last chance saloon’ over pay.
The ballot closed last Friday, 26 October, and saw 144,719 valid ballot papers returned, with 74,631 members (or 51.6%) voting for action and 70,088 (48.4%) voting against. The ballot result was considered by the union's NJC committee and local government service group executive today. The NJC committee welcomed the majority vote in the ballot by members for strike action in the current pay dispute.
But it overwhelmingly voted for a statement which read: "However, in all the circumstances, including the narrowness of the majority and the size of the poll, this result does not constitute the basis for viable industrial action to break the government’s pay policy."
3 comments:
We hardly had a high profile campaign from the national executive to get a solid yes vote!
Do we go to the ballot box again next year if the government persist with a pay cut mentality?
The campaign for next years pay claim starts now. Our members did respond with a "yes" vote for industrial action, so the Government should take notice.
We need the union leadership to draw the line in the sand a lot sooner next year, rather than letting negotiations carry on until October!
I'm sure our branch posistion will be to go back to the ballot box if public sector pay restraint continues.
We have to get this years money sorted first, and to make sure it is this year. We have been waiting too long already to get it paid in January. I suspect the small majority in the vote was due to Xmas coming up. In Doncaster now we are not even going to get the money owing us in time to be able to use it for the reason we allowed this cut in wages. This needs sorting now!!!!!
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