3,000 council workers to be balloted for strike action

More than 3,000 staff at Birmingham City Council will be balloted for strike action from today, over the council’s “delay” to settling its £760m equal pay liability.

The council effectively declared itself bankrupt following the liability, an £80m IT overspend and a series of budget cuts and has since called in commissioners to oversee the running of it.

Last week, commissioners set the challenge of the council securing £300m in savings by January 7. Savings of £149.8m have already been identified but the financial position of the council remains “extremely serious and challenging”. It will hold a council meeting today to discuss the budget.

GMB Union says it called on the council to announce a timetable for settling the authority’s £760m equal pay liability, “only for council representatives to respond that settlement talks would be pushed back”.

The union alongside Unison and Unite had all signed the addendum which sets out how the Job Evaluation Scheme would be carried out in October.

A total of £1.1bn had already been paid over the last decade in relation to the settlement of Equal Pay claims.

Council leader John Cotton said last month there would not be a fire sale of assets, but commissioners have now agreed on a programme to regear the council’s £2.4bn investment property portfolio to propose sales of property and assets.

The council holds the largest land estate of any UK local authority, extending to 26,000 acres and attracts on average £34m of revenue per year from more than 6,500 property assets and over 300 of these have historic interest.

The ballot will begin today (Tuesday 12 December) and run until mid-January 2024.

Rachel Fagan, GMB Union, said: “Every single day, thousands of women across Birmingham are going to work and being underpaid because of the council’s failure to value their work properly and fairly.

“They’re owed millions of pounds from years of stolen wages, but they’ll now be plunged into a Christmas of uncertainty as council bosses refuse to come clean on the plan to pay them what they’re owed.

“With the eventual cost of settlement growing by the minute, the council’s unjustifiable decision to delay negotiations until next year puts services across the city under threat.

“It’s time for Birmingham City Council to get serious about settlement. GMB members will not back down until Brummies get what they’re owed.”