Downing Street Says » Unison Strike

Asked if the Prime Minister was alarmed by the news that members of Unison had voted to strike and what did the Government plan to do, the Prime Minister’s Spokesman (PMS) told the assembled press that our overall position was set out most recently by the Chancellor at the weekend. We would like to see continued restraint in pay in both the public and private sectors.

In relation to this specific dispute, central Government did not participate in local Government pay negotiations, which were rightly a matter for the local Government employers and trade unions to resolve. However, as DCLG had been saying, we were disappointed that Unison had been saying that they had decided to take strike action with the unfortunate disruption that this would bring to some local services.

Put that this came quickly after the Prime Minister and the Chancellor had expressed the need for pay restraint and was this a challenge to their authority, the PMS repeated that we had called for continuing restraint in both the private and public sectors. There had been some difficult settlements for public sector workers in the past couple of years, but this had enabled us to keep inflation lower than it might otherwise have been.

Asked if the Prime Minister was hopeful that there would be a settlement, the PMS said he thought this was really something for local Government and the trade unions to resolve, but as he had said, we were disappointed that Unison had decided to take this action.

6 Comments »

We need to remember that without Teaching Assistants and School Cooks it would make the childrens learning an extremely difficult task.
We are extremely low paid compared to Teachers etc.
Goverment want to improve the education system, well lets pay the staff a better wage. Lets get the staff to get paid for all of the hard work and achievements.Then maybe the schools would not have difficulties recruiting.
Comment by Sumaya Finch — 25 Jun 2008 on 8:46 pm | Link
What concerns me, is that our Authority are so strapped for cash that if the strike action is successful and employers increase their offer, there would be more redundancies (because the staffing budget would need to be cut to offset the pay increase) or council tax bills will rise. The money has to come from somewhere!! Either way we will lose!!
Comment by Concerned — 26 Jun 2008 on 10:25 am | Link
This is all ridiculous! People who don’t really do anything demanding more money for their “integral support.” Honestly! Send the children to school with packed lunches and if their parents taught them to stop demanding attention they wouldn’t need teaching assistants!
Comment by Imani — 15 Jul 2008 on 8:40 pm | Link
If Mr Brown is saying he would like to see continued restraint in pay in both the public and private sectors because of the continuing increases why did council workers not get better pay rises when we had better times. I say negotiate with them
Comment by martin holmes — 16 Jul 2008 on 2:08 pm | Link
Listen to the Unison Mr Brown. I think you’ll be saying bye bye if you don’t.. I certainly won’t be voting for you this yr!
Comment by concerned — 18 Jul 2008 on 2:48 pm | Link
Pay restraint is needed but examples need to come from the top. How on earth can you expect low paid workers to accept below inflation pay rises when people like those top people get 200% more money in bonuses alone than your average council worker.
Comment by rob thomas — 19 Jul 2008 on 4:49 pm | Link

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» Monday, June 23, 2008

Unison Strike

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