Swindon social workers start two week strike over pay
Workers who run the emergency overnight service have walked out.
Social workers in Swindon who run the emergency overnight service are starting a two week strike in a dispute over pay.
Seven social workers walked out at midnight for 14 days - they will then be on strike every weekend until January.
The GMB union, which represents the workers, is concerned Swindon Borough Council won't be able to provide social workers for child protection and mental health crises during the strike.
Andy Newman, GMB Branch Secretary, said: “The Emergency Duty Service are a team of seven highly experienced social workers, who deal with serious issues such as child protection and mental health crises and often receive calls or referrals in the night from the police or NHS mental health teams.. They deal with emotionally difficult and sometimes harrowing situations.
“It is very unusual for professionals like this to take strike action, but our members are furious that their pay has been cut due to a botched pay and grading review by the council, which has involved them losing a £700 contractual uplift for working out of hours at nights, weekends and bank holidays.
“We are concerned that Swindon Borough Council will not be able to fulfil its statutory duty to provide an Approved Mental Health Professional (AMHP) at all times.
“Normally, in the lead up to a strike like this, there would be feverish activity on both sides to seek a solution but Swindon Borough Council officers have literally gone on holiday, and the person who they put forward to hold the fort has not contacted GMB all week, despite promising to do so.
“Swindon Borough Council’s negotiations strategy is a clown show - they don’t even know how many people are in the EDS department and they are using inaccurate information about the financial losses of these staff, so GMB proposed that ACAS should be involved to facilitate finding a negotiated solution to end the strike.
“SBC have turned down the involvement of ACAS and it seems to us that they don’t even want to find a way out of this mess.”
We've contacted Swindon Council for a response.