Industrial action across ABC Council underway over pay and contracts dispute
The three biggest trade unions in Northern Ireland are all involved
Strike action has begun across the Armagh, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council area from this morning.
The walkouts began at 6am after talks between the Council and GMB, NIPSA and United trade unions broke down last week.
The strike action is being taken over what the Unions say is pay disparity between people carrying out the same roles and being paid different amounts.
They've called for the harmonization of contracts for workers, with the Unions saying that in the seven years since the legacy council was formed, proper contracts for workers have yet to be ratified to their satisfaction.
While full strike action is taking place today, NIPSA say their members will provide a limited service from Tuesday. However, they've added that services such as refuse collection won't take place 'for the foreseeable future'.
Burials and registrations across the ABC Council area will still go ahead as normal.
A spokesperson for Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council said:
“Council has made a substantial offer to the Trade Unions that would see a payment of £1400 spread across two £700 payments for all employees, to provide immediate financial relief to staff dealing with cost of living pressures right now, at a cost to council of £2.3m.
“This offer combined with the national pay award of £1925 would have meant an additional £3,325 of payments to each employee (pro rata) during 2022/23, with a further commitment to a pay and grading review. In real terms staff on lower scale incomes would receive up to a 17.6%, significantly more than the offer sought”.
The council position is that the offer proposed meets and exceeds the objective being asked by the Trade Unions, to help staff with the current cost of living crisis. The demand of the JTUs on salary scale incremental rises, will only provide a relatively small monthly increase to most people to deal with what is an immediate pressure.
Commenting further the spokesperson added: “Council is also aware that Union members were not consulted on the offer prior to the Trade Unions rejection, and those who did vote for strike action, did so before this offer was made.
“The current national pay offer of £1,925 for each employee represents a pressure of approximately £3.2million on council budgets for this year and will be need to be found each year going forward. Any additional incremental pay increase asked for by Trade Unions will increase this figure substantially. Council must be mindful of the need to manage the rates burden being placed on households and businesses in what are already difficult times.”