An offer we can refuse

A week from today the national employers' side negotiators are likely to make a formal offer for the 2013/14 pay round.



Time was this annual event would have been unremarkable, but it's something which hasn't happened over the past three years. This must be a cause of some relief to the employers' side negotiators, since if we never got pay offers the employers might not need negotiators.



So, let me say it again.



A week from today the national employers' side negotiators are likely to make a formal offer for the 2013/14 pay round.



Whether there shall be any cause for celebration on the trade union side is, however, questionable.



Wiser and better informed sources than your humble blogger (Sid and Doris Service Group) predict an offer of 1% probably minus the worst of the mooted "strings" (an assault on sick pay).



I don't think we'll be putting champagne on ice in our branch office though - even if an attack on conditions which hasn't happened doesn't happen.



There would be nothing to celebrate if we end up with a pay "rise" which is a further reduction in real earnings (as the percentage increase in pay would fall well below the current rate of price increases).



The standard of living of the many local government workers who have seen neither a promotion nor incremental progression since 2009 has fallen by one sixth. At the same time, as tens of thousands of jobs have been lost, workloads have been rising inexorably.



Now is the time to implement the policy moved at last September's TUC by UNISON's own Dave Prentis - and to seek to coordinate action to smash the Government's pay policy.



This means that the trade unions in local government need to find the confidence to recommend rejection of a below-inflation pay offer, and to campaign energetically and persuasively for our members to be prepared to take strike action to win the increase we deserve.

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