Anger at council workers’ pay freeze

Local authorities were accused of heaping “misery upon misery” on their workforces after 1.6m council workers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland were told their pay would be frozen for an unprecedented third year in a row.

The Local Government Association blamed the move on rising costs and shrinking funding, saying more jobs and services would have to be cut if the pay freeze ended in April.

Unions called the decision a “disgrace” and some threatened industrial action if the matter was not referred for arbitration by Acas, the conciliation service.

Unison said pay had already been slashed by 13 per cent in real terms in the past three years. Heather Wakefield, the union’s head of local government, said more would be forced into the poverty trap including “women working in vital jobs in our local communities, like caring for the elderly, or for young children, or helping the vulnerable”.

“Not even the lowest paid in local government will get the £250 increase the chancellor promised them – they didn’t get it last year either,“ she said.

Brian Strutton, of the GMB general union, warned of industrial action, saying the freeze was not an austerity measure but a “deliberate political choice” aimed at keeping council tax down.

Sarah Messenger, of the LGA, said: “While the financial outlook for councils is bleak, we are keen to begin discussions with the unions on a package of reform of pay and conditions that may enable us to avoid a fourth year of pay freeze in 2013.”