A UNION is balloting its council worker members over changes to terms and conditions.
Unison is giving its members the chance to vote for or against each of Calderdale Council’s proposals.
The Examiner reported yesterday that the authority was looking to save £600,000 – and if talks with the union fell through the council would negotiate with affected staff individually.
Edward Ashman of Unison said: “We are balloting 2,000 staff over this and the ballot ends at 4pm on Friday, September 6. We should know the outcome on the Monday after.
“We’re not telling members to vote for or against – it is for members to decide what they think about each of the council’s proposals.
“We’ve said that should there not be a collective agreement they must be prepared to take some form of industrial action.”
Mr Ashman said that some of the proposals put forward by the council were “old anomalies”.
“The telephone allowance is an old anomaly, council staff who need to be on call are given work mobile phones so that isn’t a problem.
“The three things we’re trying to resolve is the changes to sickness pay, that’s a nationally agreed term and condition and right at the start of negotiations we made that clear.
“We’ve negotiated over the protection policy for staff redeployed to a role with a lower salary and we’re discussing the issue of car allowance. There will still be two tiers of car mileage policy.”
Clr Bryan Smith said earlier this week that if the council is unable to reach an agreement with staff, or the trade unions “then we will have to offer all staff a contract with the new terms and conditions”.
