Local government workers 'facing tsunami of job losses'

A union is warning of a "tsunami" of job losses in the public sector as a growing number of workers received redundancy warnings even before the Government's comprehensive spending review.
By The Newsroom
Published 10th Oct 2010, 22:22 BST
Updated 10th Oct 2010, 22:22 BST

The GMB said official notifications of possible redundancy were now "piling up" in offices across the country, mainly from councils planning spending cuts ahead of the review announcement later this month.

Latest warnings included 800 potential job cuts at Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council and 500 in the London Borough of Havering on top of previous threats to thousands of jobs in areas including Sheffield, Birmingham, Walsall, Croydon and Dorset, said the GMB.

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National officer Brian Strutton said: "There is a tsunami wave of public sector job losses sector coming down the line. The statutory advance notification of redundancies (HR1s) forms are piling up in GMB offices.

"This tidal wave of redundancy notices is coming because councils are seeking to further reduce staff costs for next year in anticipation of reduced budgets when the Government announces cuts on October 20.

"There is no more efficiency or productivity savings to be had. Councils are now simply cutting back services and hacking back terms and conditions of employment. Job insecurity is a crippling fear that is paralysing local government."

The GMB said some Tory and Liberal Democrat councils were treating staff like dirt, using a legal device of pretending to make all the workforce redundant and offering some re-employment on worse terms.

Related topics:GMBGovernmentBirminghamDorset