'A slap in the face'

(19/03/08) UNISON described a 2.2% pay offer from local government employers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland tonight as "a slap in the face".The offer came at talks with the employers in central London which took much of the day.The joint trade unions submitted a pay claim for an increase of 6% or 50p an hour, whichever was the greater, earlier this year.UNISON head of local government Heather Wakefield reacted to the offer by saying: "A 2.2% offer is a slap in the face for 1.4 million local government workers, who have already put up with 10 years of below-inflation pay settlements. "The employers have completely ignored the justice of our claim and are prepared to let every teaching assistant, librarian, social worker and park attendant face increasing hardship. "They talk about unpleasant choices, but our members are already facing unpleasant choices between feeding their families and heating their homes. "Our members live in the real world, with real inflation and 2.2% does not go anywhere near to covering the huge hikes in basic living costs such as food, housing, gas and electricity. "You can't build world-class public services on poverty pay and it’s time that local government employers faced up to this."The government’s favoured measure of inflation, the CPI, rose to 2.5% yesterday and is expected to go even higher by the summer. "The employers need to take stock and come up with a more realistic offer in the next round of negotiations," Ms Wakefield added. UNISON's Pay Matters campaignLocal government pay