Council workers in Reigate and Banstead to ballot for industrial action over ‘insulting’ pay award, says UNISON

Refuse workers, housing officers, parks staff and other council workers voted overwhelmingly (82%) in July to reject the pay award. The council has so far refused to reopen talks, says UNISON.

The union says that workers in other councils are being offered significantly higher rises. Reigate and Banstead residents face an exodus of council staff to neighbouring local authorities if the situation doesn’t improve, adds UNISON.

Reigate and Banstead UNISON branch secretary Maggie Judd said: “This isn’t a pay rise, it’s a substantial pay cut and an insult to hard-working staff. The award isn’t nearly enough to avoid industrial action.

"The worst cost-of-living crisis in decades has left many unable to pay bills, struggling with rising food costs and panicking about what winter will bring.

“Council staff have worked flat out during the pandemic to keep services running. The Council must get real, return to the negotiating table, and make staff a proper pay offer.”

UNISON is currently consulting members covered by national pay bargaining in local government (NJC) over a £1,925 pay offer. This is worth between 4% for senior staff and 10.5% for the lowest-paid workers (find out more by visiting unison.org.uk/our-campaigns/fair-pay-now-council-school-workers/).

Reigate and Banstead Borough Council is not covered by this agreement and negotiates separately.

A spokesperson for Reigate and Banstead Borough Council said: “We are disappointed that we have been unable to reach an agreement on our pay award and that Unison is taking this action, and hope that strike action can be avoided. Despite Unison’s claims, we continue to remain open to discussions with them.”

Cllr Mark Brunt, Council Leader, said: “We are grateful to our staff for their hard work in challenging circumstances to ensure that we continue to support our residents and deliver high quality services. We are conscious of the increased cost of living that they and their families are experiencing, and want to support our staff, however we only have a finite budget from which we can offer a pay award. This is a national cost of living crisis, and increased costs and inflation are impacting the Council’s budgets as well as those of households."

You can read their full response here.

UNISON is the UK’s largest union with more than 1.3 million members providing public services in education, local government, the NHS, police service and energy. They are employed in the public, voluntary and private sectors.