Unions blast £2m cut to redundancy pay

Photo: Chris Sunderland

A protester speaks to Lib-Dem councillor Jackie Stanton

No decisions made — council

ANGRY trade union representatives hit out at Oldham Council last night in a last-minute bid to halt a new redundancy deal for staff.

The council want to cut redundancy pay in a bid to make a potential saving of £2million.

Union reps gathered to protest at a meeting of Labour councillors to show their frustration with the deal that would mean a 60 per cent cut for all non-teaching staff made redundant.

They argue that the deal is being rushed through unfairly so to be applied to the next round of workers who will learn their fate on Thursday.

It’s understood, however, that a decision has not yet been made on whether the changes will apply to these staff.

Tracy Delaney, assistant branch secretary for Unison, said: “These are lower-paid workers and this takes the council’s obligation down to the statutory minimum.

“This will cause massive financial worries for people. A lot of workers are saying a lack of jobs means they are depending on this money to help them and their children to survive until they find something else.

“This decision totally threw us — staff are struggling to make ends meet while in work let alone without a job.”

The proposals would cap entitlement to 30 weeks, which unions claim would cost those under threat an average of more than £6000 each.

Oldham Council announced at the start of September that up to 400 jobs could be shed for the financial year 2012-13, meaning workers would have to leave before the end of March next year.

An initial phase of 122 job losses were subsequently announced, with a second and final number expected on Thursday.

Currently those being made redundant are granted a week’s pay for each year of service, multiplied by 2.5 to reach a final figure.

The council is aiming to remove the multiplication in a bid to save costs and bring the package in line with other local authorities.

If this had been done in 2010/11 it would have saved over £2 million.

Joint unions, including Unison, Unite and GMB, were called to the table for discussions during the summer, but they argue that consultation was not meaningful and should be repeated.

They also say Oldham has a more favourable redundancy package because wages are lower and that if plans are brought in part way through the financial year different employees would get different deals.

Unison’s Tracy Delaney added: “We’ve seen pay freezes, job cuts and now this – it’s a real kick.

“If workers can’t keep their jobs it’s down to us to make sure they get a fair deal and these changes are being rushed in.”

The council is set to decide in the coming days whether or not the changes will affect staff being informed of redundancies on Thursday.