UNISON the public service union - At work: Local government

UNISON and the Local Government Pay Commission

Last year's pay settlement was just the start of UNISON's determination to tackle the neglect of all our members working for local councils. Under the terms of the pay deal agreed, a Local Government Pay Commission has been established by the National Joint Council Employers and Trade Unions.

The Commission has now released its report, following a year of deliberations. There is much in it to welcome from a UNISON point of view. The Commission supports continued national bargaining, sees JE and Single Status implementation as the way forward for dealing with pay discrimination and has called for equal pay audits in every council.

The report is less helpful on basic pay levels, although it points out that local government workers' pay fell behind the rest of the economy between 1988 and 2002 and states that above inflation pay increases could be justified on equality grounds. Its findings on basic pay and recruitment and retention have not fully confronted our arguments about low pay levels throughout the structure and their negative impact on staffing and services.

Overall, the tone and basic arguments underpinning the report are those put forward in the UNISON and trade union side evidence. The Commission agrees that local government workers have become the 'poor relations' of the public sector. They call for a more strategic approach to workforce matters and investment in single status implementation and training.

The need for equality at the bargaining table, within trade unions and throughout local government is a key theme throughout the report. It calls for trade unions to be 'as representative of all employees as possible' and for unions to 'capacity build on equality at a local level'.

Link to another page on this site Read the UNISON summary in online HTML format

Link to a document on this site Download the UNISON summary in PDF format

To read Acrobat PDF files you need Acrobat Reader software, which is available free of charge from the Link to an external website Adobe website in both PC and Mac format.

In these pay commission webpages, you can read: