GMB issue Strike Action notice to Brighton Council over unpaid Housing Maintenance pay rise
"Let’s hope the onset of strike action is just the jolt the Council need to wake them up and start negotiations. It’s their move next," say GMB Union
GMB, the union for public sector workers, have issued strike action notice to Brighton & Hove City Council over their refusal to engage in pay talks on behalf of our members in Housing Repairs and Maintenance.
The Council’s Chief Executive Geoff Raw and Interim Executive Director for Housing, Neighbourhoods and Communities Rachel Sharpe have been informed that our members will be taking action on 3rd, 5th and 7th August, should the Council continue to avoid, delay and filibuster this long outstanding pay increase.
The pay claim was originally put in October 2019 to Mears Ltd, who were running the contract on behalf of the Council. Since the staff are now being brought back in-house, the unsettled claim also transfers to the council.
BHCC have accepted this claim as part of the liabilities of transfer, however since the staff have moved over, the Council have come up with excuse after excuse to avoid settling what is a simple 8% pay claim, whilst ensuring that sick pay and holiday entitlements were fairly rationalised across all of the transferring trades and staff.
The Council have as an alternative stated that they wish to carry out a harmonisation program which will in fact cause transferred staff to suffer a pay cut. This is not linked to the original and current pay deal and in fact was not notified to transferring staff within the measures letter provided during the TUPE in April 2020, as is required by law.
The strike dates are the first in a series of action notices presented to BHCC by angry and disappointed repairs team staff, whose only wish is for the Council to sit and honour the planned negotiations on pay that were in place when they took the team back in-house.
Gary Palmer GMB Regional Organiser said: “Mears Ltd were always predictably slow and slippery in avoiding matters when it came to pay, but even they had the decency to eventually sit down to resolve matters. Geoff Raw and his team have failed to even live up to that extremely low bar.
“Mears thought unilaterally imposing a 2% pay increase across the board with no other changes was good enough, but our members rejected the deal for the insulting rubbish it was. BHCC and its housing team were kept up to date with the dispute throughout, meaning that it would be the Council that would ultimately need to settle the pay deal once past the point of transfer.
“On that basis, GMB suspended its previous notice of strike action over the transfer dates in good faith, on the understanding that the Council would be keen to negotiate to see the matter resolved once the service had settled in.”
Mark Turner GMB B50 Branch Secretary said: “We are very disappointed that the GMB’s act of good faith in suspending the industrial action has been repaid not only with a refusal to enter into talks on a pay deal, but with the proposed imposition of a harmonisation process to force staff to take what would for some be a significant pay cut.
“We are sorry for what will potentially be quite a disruptive period for the city residents’ housing repair service, but to be clear GMB are not prepared to accept any cuts at all. The fact that this pay deal is in real danger of spilling over into the dates planned for this year’s 2020 pay submission in October, shows that you only get so far being as tolerant as we have been to date.
“Let’s hope the onset of strike action is just the jolt the Council need to wake them up and start negotiations. It’s their move next.”
Contact Mark Turner 07860 787973 or Gary Palmer 07552 165950
