Council workers face industrial action ballot after pay offer rejected

Your support helps us to tell the story

Support Now

Find out moreClose

As your White House correspondent, I ask the tough questions and seek the answers that matter.

Your support enables me to be in the room, pressing for transparency and accountability. Without your contributions, we wouldn't have the resources to challenge those in power.

Your donation makes it possible for us to keep doing this important work, keeping you informed every step of the way to the November election

Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

Local authority workers are to be balloted for industrial action after rejecting a pay offer.

Members of Unite, employed by local authorities in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, voted by 85% against the offer which the union said was worth £1,290 plus 2.5% on allowances.

The workers include refuse collection, housing workers and care staff.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “Our members undertake vital frontline roles that ensure that local communities are well maintained, safe and attractive places to live, they have drawn a line in the sand and will not accept any further erosion of their pay.”

An industrial action ballot will begin on August 30 and Unite said if there is a yes vote, strikes could begin later this autumn.

Unite said local authority workers have endured more than a decade of pay freezes and below inflation pay increases which has seen their pay decline by over a quarter in real terms.