[18
APR 00] COVENTRY CITY COUNCIL NEWS
Angry Workers Heckle Councillors
BY ANTONY HOPKER
Angry
workers confronted councillors in Coventry city centre today over
plans to change their pay and conditions that could see their salaries
slashed
More
than 100 employees heckled members of the Labour group as they arrived
at the Council House for today’s full council meeting.
Unions
are up in arms over plans to introduce new pay and conditions in a
review called Single Status.
Many
workers face pay cuts of thousands of pounds in the changes and up to
11,000 employees are affected.
Single
Status is a national agreement to try and iron out the inequalities in
pay between people doing the same job.
It
is due to be introduced across the country within the next few years,
but Coventry City Council decided to merge with an overall evaluation
of more than 2,000 posts.
The
result is that many people will see their salary pushed down.
Union
leaders are angry that the evaluation process was not carried out with
their consultation.
They
say each post-holder should have been given a review with union
representation, and a line-manager present.
But
many people were denied a chance to have a union rep present.
Councillors
admit that some people will be worse off as a result of single status.
The changes affect everyone from manual workers to managers, and some
people could see £5,000 a year go from their salaries.
David
Cairns of the T+GWU said morale had sunk at the council. The results
of a ballot of union members finding out what they think of Single
Status will be known on Thursday.
Terry
Rollings of Unison said:
“Today
is a show of strength to show councillors what the employees think
of this. A lot of people are very committed and have stayed at their
desks, but we want those who voted for it to see what people
feel.”
Cllr
John Mutton (Labour, Binley and Willenhall) said the decision to
impose Single Status had not yet been voted at by the full council.
And
he admitted there were splits within the ruling Labour group over the
issue.
Speaking
after he came face-to-face with an angry protestor, he said:
“I
support the rights of the workforce to take action if they decide
to. I’ve always been a trade unionist and defend their rights to
protest.
“Single
Status is a national agreement, but my belief is that the two things
could have been dealt with separately.”
|
