Unions slam council chief’s pay as city faces more cost-cutting

The GMB, Unison and Unite, backed by Hull Trades Union Council, will be lobbying councillors next week ahead of negotiations over “generous” car allowances, overtime and redundancy payments at Labour-run Hull Council.

The administration says it is the only way of protecting jobs at the council, which needs to make £33m savings over the next two financial years.

The council axed 1,000 jobs last year and is to shed up to 240 more in its business support section. But unions say they refuse to join “a race to the bottom” by removing terms and conditions which have been “hard won” over the years.

The council, under interim chief executive Darryl Stephenson, is looking to tackle a wide range of terms and conditions, including slashing the £4m overtime bill, which sees workers get time and a half on Saturdays and double time on Sundays, and its £2.3m car allowances bill, including £688,000 paid to staff claiming an essential car users’ allowance.

Unions say the cuts could make the difference to lower-paid workers “of paying the bills or going under”.

In an email to staff last month, Mr Stephenson warned “unpalatable” decisions had to be made and said paying overtime on Sundays meant the cafe in the Ferens Art Gallery could not open, despite demand.

In a joint newsletter, unions hit back with the jibe that he could probably pay the workers “himself out of the loose change in his pocket”.

Adrian Kennett, branch secretary for Unison, said they believed Mr Stephenson had been paid £36,000 over three months.

“This is the man who is paid £600-a-day and gets transported to his home and now they want to take social workers off essential car use,” he said.

“We’ve had a management restructure which created more managers’ jobs and improved pay grades. One job was advertised yesterday for leisure and museums for £87,000 – and they are talking about attacking terms and conditions.”

The unions have sent Labour councillors an open letter urging them to demand the Government for “the return of Hull’s money”.

Mr Kennett said: “Quite clearly we want Labour to show some teeth.”

Hull Trades Union Council secretary Phil Sanderson said: “These kind of changes spell even more economic problems for Hull.

“It is crazy to reduce the spending power of people in a city that has been hammered by the recession. We have already lost over 4,000 jobs in the private sector and Hull is reliant on decent public sector jobs.”

The unions are calling on members to support the lobby at the Guildhall on Thursday ahead of a full council meeting.

However council leader Steve Brady defended Mr Stephenson’s pay, saying it was comparable to that of other council chief executives. He said: “People can say what they want but what they need to do is sit round the table and look at ways of saving jobs.

“By the time we get to 2014- 2015 we will have lost £100m in revenue – so they had better tell us the magic formula of how you keep everything as it is, without people leaving the authority and keeping services going.

“I think it is quite immoral paying out huge amounts of overtime when people are potentially going to lose their jobs.”

He went on: “We have saved £500,000 in the senior management structure and there is further restructuring to come about. I’m certainly not going to put in jeopardy the structure we need to actually deliver the savings. The answer does not lie with management savings, it is savings right across the piece – we don’t want to get into the situation where 1,000 people leave in a month and I am absolutely committed that we won’t go down that route.”