Hull council workers facing sack and rehire reject management offer

Unite and the GMB said they would be recommending refusal when they ballot members at Hull Council over changes to terms and conditions next month.

The latest set of proposals, which involves all staff taking a half an hour cut in their working week, from 37 hours to 36 and a half, to help save £2.6m, has been promoted as a “fairer” approach to proposals rejected by 85 per cent of staff in a ballot in September.

However Unite convenor Peter Schofield said the council was “negotiating down the barrel of a gun” and they would “not make the same mistake” as Doncaster Council, where employees accepted a pay cut, only to be faced with the prospect of more than 1,000 redundancies.

The council is currently in a 45-day consultation period over dismissing and re-engaging all 6,733 staff on the original set of proposals.

Unions are warning that the 
dispute may lead to industrial action.

However Coun Phil Webster accused unions of not “learning lessons” from the recent Grangemouth dispute and said industrial action would lead to compulsory redundancies.

Mr Schofield said: “Unite’s view is very clear that it is a breach of conditions that are set nationally.

“When we are getting derisory pay offers, why would we as a trade union offer up additional savings through the green book?

“Every member of staff had a one per cent pay rise this year which took a long time to negotiate – if this goes through it will be a 1.35 per cent reduction.

“Why on earth would we agree it?”

There is also scepticism that the council will achieve the savings they expect as agency staff will have to be hired to fill in the four days a year staff will no longer work. Union chiefs are also claiming the money saved will make barely a dent on the £48m 
they must save in the next two years.

Neil Ware, GMB convenor, said while the highest paid staff could afford a cut in their wage, those on the lowest wages could not.

He said: “If a rejection vote comes back from GMB and Unite, a Labour council will be sacking its workers to impose a new set of terms and conditions.

At that point we will be moving the battle from a negotiated front to an industrial front.

“We would be willing and eager to go back to the table to look at a negotiated settlement.

“If there’s no negotiated settlement, members will take what action they can take against the imposition of changes to their contract.”

Coun Webster, who holds the finance portfolio, said he would “have thought they (the Unite union) had learned their lesson from Grangemouth”.

The owners of the giant petrochemical site reversed their decision to axe the plant after Unite accepted a survival plan, including a three-year pay freeze, ending of the final salary pension scheme and other changes to terms and conditions.

Coun Webster said the second set of proposals were “fairer” as they affected all staff, and took money off even the highest paid in the authority. He said: “If they don’t accept the latest proposals, the only ones we can impose are the ones that were rejected by the 85 per cent of the workforce. It seems bizarre.”

The two unions represent around a quarter of the workforce.

They will be balloting staff on November 8, with a result due back on Nov 15 – just two days before the council’s consultation on the first set of proposals comes to an end.

The union Unison has already said it will ballot members on the changes without a recommendation.

However, it has also warned that if it is rejected, it too will ballot for industrial action.