CARE workers, CCTV staff and librarians began an overtime ban yesterday with further strike action likely.
Council staff who work unsocial hours are angry after Tory-controlled Cheshire West and Chester Council imposed ‘flat’ rates – meaning no extra pay for workers who do weekends, overtime or bank holidays.
Affected members will refuse to work contractual or voluntary overtime. On Thursday, the unions involved may announce further strikes following recent action over the Easter bank holiday.
The aim is to force the authority back to the negotiating table, because council leaders are not prepared to meet until the next staffing committee meeting on May 28.
Last Thursday, Unison members took part in a demonstration outside CWaC’s full council meeting in Winsford.
Regional Unison manager Lynne Morris, who was on the demo, said: “I was on a lobby with some social care workers and they were telling me with bank holiday payments in that particular month they would lose £120 and these are low paid women workers.”
Mrs Morris has heard reports that during the last strike the council drafted in agency care workers not checked for criminal records.
“Why are they paying people double time to come in and cover our members’ jobs? And I’d like to know if the stories we are hearing about people without proper CRB checks were used. If they’re true it might not just be the union that’s interested, it could well be people like the ombudsman and the Care Standards Agency.”
Tory staffing committee chairman Cllr Alan McKie told full council: “We must point out that the trade union failed to engage with the council for over 18 months. Only when we had about 97.5% of the employees signed up did they choose to come back and say they had some other proposals.
“Why did it take 18 months to talk to us? I would suggest because they weren’t ever going to agree with us.”
