Pay cuts for Bath & North East Somerset Council workers may not end up reducing anyone’s pay, the local authority has insisted, but trade unions are unconvinced.
B&NES Council’s chief executive Will Godfrey | Photo © B&NES Council
The council’s employment committee is set to vote on 14th May on the council’s new pay structure.
The controversial plan will reduce salaries for some council IT workers, although plans for a potential pay cut for workers in the passenger transport and waste and recycling departments would be addressed separately in the next three months.
In a statement, the council said 62% of its 3,500 staff would see their pay go up. Meanwhile, 106 people who would see pay for their role reduced would receive pay protection for three years.
The council said: “At the end of that period, it is possible no individual will see an overall reduction in pay.”
The council’s chief executive, Will Godfrey, said: “Our staff deliver valuable services and these proposals are fundamentally about fairness.
“We have undertaken extensive consultation and negotiation with trade union representatives on this since August 2024.
“Around three per cent of our staff will see their salary protected for three years. Nothing will change for drivers, loaders, recycling advisors and passenger transport for the time being.
“We will continue to work with these staff and trade unions to find the best way to implement our proposals.”
Amy Rushton, branch chair for trade union Unison, which represents workers at the council, said: “It is astonishing that the council is claiming this is about ‘fairness’ when they are downgrading some of their lowest-paid workers.
“The council cannot deny that those workers are worse off under these proposals even with pay protection in place.”
Although the pay structure changes going before the committee would affect 106 people, a further 245 workers in the passenger transport and waste and recycling departments could also face pay cuts when the proposals for those departments are implemented separately in the next three months.
Ms Rushton said: “Up to 351 people, a staggering 1 in 10 workers, are at risk of being downgraded, and we cannot stand by and allow that to happen. Many of these people have given years of dedicated service to the council and their communities.
“The council have said they are extending the consultation on 245 roles but the outcome of this is unlikely to be satisfactory. We know that unless those workers are downgraded, the council will face an unequal pay claim.
“The only fair and acceptable way to resolve this is by putting those brought in house onto the current grades that drivers and waste and recycling are on.
“We will say it again, you don’t resolve gender pay parity issues by paying men less. You pay women more.”
Councils can face equal pay claims when men are paid more than women for doing jobs which are considered equivalent.
The council recently brought some adult social care contracts in-house, meaning that a low-paid predominantly female workforce has TUPEed (transferred under protected employment) to the council.
The union said the proposed pay cuts are in departments which are predominantly male.
Council social worker and Unison activist Toni Mayo told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “As a woman and a social worker, I don’t want equal pay to be addressed by men being paid less. We want women to be paid more.”
The council has said that once the national pay award is taken into account, there will be a pay rise of more than six percent for some of the council’s lowest-paid staff.
John Wimperis, Local Democracy Reporter
