A NEW set of harmonised conditions for both blue and white collar council workers has been negotiated by the TGWU, GMB and UNISON. Although the Single Status, as it is known, is in principle to be welcomed, the deal that has been eventually negotiated should be rejected.
A conference of local government UNISON branches on May 20 came close to doing this. The national leadership only obtained a majority of 72,000, out of 700,000 votes cast, to recomend acceptance of the Single Status in a ballot of the membership.
The main areas of concern are: FOR THEM!
* Despite this being a national agreement, employers will be able to negotiate changes, in particular special payments, at a local level.
* No additional finance is available, thus forcing councils to make cuts in order to pay the deal;
* The reduction to 37 hours (36 in London) for manual workers will not come into force until 1999, and then on the basis of increased productivity;
* A new national job evaluation scheme will not be compulsory, and according to the employers' own briefing " after reviews councils can move away from national scales and grades".
* The pay rise which is part of the package is only 2.5 per cent on average while the minium hourly rate is f4, well below UNISON'S minimum wage claim of £4.42.
Opposition to the deal was led by the Campaign for a Fighting and Democratic Unison, who produced a special pamphlet, which was snapped up by the delegates.
UNISON's leadership will now try and sell this deal as a "historic offer" and will flood the membership with publicity to convince them to accept the offer.
But the CFDU is launching a campaign for a "No" vote, demanding instead proper harmonisation with a Single Status which would not lead to the break-up of national negotiations and which would not be financed by cuts or yet more increases in productivity.