Union members accept 1% pay offer for local authority staff

Members of the GMB union have voted to accept a 1% pay rise for local authority staff, backdated to 1 April 2013.

This is the first national pay offer for council workers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland since 2009. A total of 1.5 million employees are covered by the deal, including tens of thousands of social workers.

Unison’s members voted to accept the offer in June.

GMB’s national secretary, Brian Strutton, said: “I’m pleased that we have managed to break the pay freeze that had been imposed for three years.

“But there is still a long way to go to restore living standards for frontline council staff that clean our streets, empty our bins, look after our children in schools and nurseries, our elderly at home and in care homes and protect the most vulnerable members of our communities.”

Employers made it clear in April that this was their final offer and the “best one possible” in light of the cuts to council funding.

They also hit out at the unions for refusing to consider wider reforms to staff terms and conditions and said councils would look to make changes at a local level.

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