Unions representing 40,000 skilled council craftworkers (UCATT, UNITE and GMB) are appalled that a long delayed pay offer has been formulated in order to cut the terms and conditions of all local government craftworkers.

The workers concerned are local government craftworkers including: carpenters, bricklayers, painters, labourers, electricians, plumbers, heating and ventilator engineers and gas fitters. Their terms and conditions are set by the Joint Negotiating Committee JNC "Red Book" agreement, which is tailored to cover their specific working environment.

The employers are proposing a pay increase of just 1% for the majority of pay grades, with the building labourer rate (the lowest) receiving a 1.25% increase. Allowances would also only rise by 1%.

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Alan Ritchie General Secretary of construction union UCATT and the secretary of the union side of the JNC, said: "It is very disappointing that we have not previously received a pay offer. The pay date was April 1st; this offer is nearly four months late. We will now consult our members before formally responding to the proposed pay increase."

The employers are also offering to pay an additional 0.3%, which other council workers on the Green Book received last year, if the unions voluntarily agree to collapse the Red Book. A 0.3% increase for the majority of local government craftworkers would be worth just 50 pence.

A unilateral decision to collapse the JNC, a national agreement, would create a situation where all 40,000 craftworkers would be issued with formal redundancy notices and then issued with new contracts. Given past experiences where individual councils have taken such action, this will result in extensive legal cases, thousands of tribunal claims and years of internal chaos for the councils involved.

Mr Ritchie, added: "The threats to end the Red Book agreement is half-baked and is being pushed forward by several high ranking civil servants, in order to satisfy their own ideological agenda. At a time when the Government is encouraging council’s to build new social housing it is politically illiterate to attack the working conditions of the very workers who will be required to fill these roles."

(CD/JM)