COUNCIL WORKERS PAYING FOR EQUALITY

10-10-2006

The Birmingham Mail had a great scoop yesterday when it revealed that council workers are paid £53,000 for painting white lines. But The Stirrer can reveal that the story masks a far greater scandal - wage cuts of up to £10,000 for some local authority staff.

Yes, it isastonishing that guys responsible for road markings can earn so much dosh, even when you appreciate that at least 50% of their income comes from allowances for working unsocial hours.

But why has the story emerged now, when it's not exactly a new phenomenon?

The answer is that it's been leaked - and for a very good reason.

Birmingham Council is racing to meet a deadline for equalising pay between male and female workers - the so-called Single Status scheme - and it could lead to some employees losing thousands of pounds every year.

How convenient toscapegoat a small number of arguably over-paid staff, to justify wage cuts elsewhere.

The idea behind Single Status is an admirable one. In 1997 the government and trade unions recognised that many traditional wage agreements in the public sector were inherently sexist.

Workers in female-dominated areas such as school meals, for example, were almost always paid less than colleagues in traditional male areas.

This kind of casual discrimination was open to legal challenge under Equal Pay legislation, so ministers did a deal with the unions - it was agreed that over the next few years, workers in comparable roles would have their pay harmonised and discrimination would be eliminated.

In the Health Service, a similar process called Agenda For Change has also been introduced, but crucially the government helped to smooth the process with an extra £3 billion.

No additional money was made available to local authorities for Single Status though, which meant they could only finance it by increasing council tax (political suicide), cutting services (likewise) or - more commonly - reducing the wages of some workers to increase the pay of others.

Not surprisingly this has caused uproar in some parts of the country. Earlier this year, for example, council workers in Coventry went on strike over Single Status, even though unions belatedly managed to negotiate a five-year freeze on wage cuts for more than 1,600 workers due to lose out.

Ironically, the majority of those who facepay reductions are female.

It's not only high-rollers like thosewell-cushionedroad-painters who stand to lose out either; more typical are gravediggers,on a pay-scale of £16,000-£19,000 who in Coventryface cuts of £3,000.

Now Birmingham is facing a similar conflict. The deadline for Single Status is March 31 next years and the council is rushing to comply.

Workers have been told they could lose up to £10,000 from their salaries.

One disgruntled employee told me: “Even if I lose £5,000 a year, I'll have to sell my house. It's fundamentally immoral to offer someone a job at a certain payscale, and then just take it away.”

It's also baffling how trade unionscould have beenbamboozled into signing up to a deal which could cause real hardship for so many workers.

That, though, makes for less grabbing headlines than we're now seeing - even in the national papers - about Brum's “overpaid” council staff.

Yes, a few folk probably do earn very well from the council taxpayer - many more are fearing real hardship in the years ahead.