Open letter regarding Cityclean Dispute at Brighton & Hove City Council
Bright Green has been sent this open letter from a group of Green Party councillors and activists regarding the ongoing pay dispute between refuse workers and the council administration. Refuse workers started their strike at 6am on Friday the 14th of June.
As concerned Green Party activists, Councillors and trade unionists we feel we have no option other than to write this letter. This is our response to the news that the Council’s Cityclean workforce intend to take industrial action following the collapse of negotiations relating to proposed changes to their pay and allowances.
We are appalled that the situation has escalated to the point where Council employees are forced to take strike action in order to be heard. We are concerned that as activists from a party which has spent years arguing for workers’ rights that on this occasion the argument is wrong.
We continue to oppose the imposition of pay cuts as per the decision of our Emergency General Meeting in May. Further we will show solidarity with the workers affected by this decision.
We are Green Party members because we believe in its core value of social justice. Imposing a reduction to the take home pay of some of our lowest paid workers runs completely contrary to this.
We fully support the difficult process of trying to equalise the Council’s very complex allowance system so that all staff are treated fairly. That said we deplore the fact that previous Labour and Conservative-led councils failed to fix the problem when they had the opportunity.
However, we cannot accept a situation which attempts to impose a settlement on staff without the agreement of all Unions involved. Negotiations should not pit worker against worker.
We remain concerned that as yet there appears to be no satisfactory negotiated resolution which means that balloting has happened and industrial action will occur from 6AM tomorrow morning for a week.
We ask all sides to urgently find a successful resolution to avert industrial action which we believe could cause all workers, the council and the City considerable pain.
Yours
Cllr Mike Jones
Cllr Phélim Mac Cafferty
Cllr Ruth Buckley
Cllr Sven Rufus
Cllr Amy Kennedy
Cllr Liz Wakefield
Cllr Alex Phillips
Cllr Ben Duncan
Cllr Stephanie Powell
Lisa Murray
Luke Walter
John Medhurst
Valerie Philips
Martin Ashby
Tom Druitt
Carlie Goldsmith
Tammie Cook
Davy Jones
Steve Harris
Ali Ghanimi
Tom Wright
Adam Ramsay
Picket lines operate from 6AM on Friday 14th June till Saturday 21st June.
On Saturday 15th June there will be a demonstration from 11:30AM at the depot.
www.gmb-southern.org.uk/bhcc
you can add your name in the comments section below
Just to respond again to GTR on cutting top wages.
It’s not that the B&H council chose to pick on the pay of the poorest (remember that the same council implemented Living Wage). Rather it’s that the unresolved local allowances issue presented itself as a problem that could not be ducked.
As James above says, compressing top pay differentials is a long term process. I think there would be a need to win the political argument for more equality. To implement it now as an emergency solution would involve tearing up National agreements on pay and conditions, rather than modifying a local allowances scheme.
In terms of timing, the clock has already been running on the solution to the local negotiations on allowances. Restarting a 90-day consultation period would risk running out of time on the equalisation process, we are told.
But there is the third “barrier” that GTR hasn’t acknowledged. Being a minority administration it would be necessary to gain cross-party support to cut top pay. No party had an electoral mandate to do that and neither Labour nor the Tories have shown any signs of wanting to do that anywhere else.
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We don’t know the details of the newly negotiated settlement proposal. It may contain increases to the compensation lump sums and it may contain opportunities for workers to acquire new skills and responsibilities, justifying regrading.
Those gains would be affordable in a way that a permanent across-the board pay increase for 8,000 workers to “level-up” would not have been.
There may be a good-news story at the end of all this which the local party can unite behind – if it chooses to.
i think we need to work on a practical version of neil hardings flat top rate proposal becoming party policy. i dont think it could be implemented in time to stop this dispute, but when this dispute is over it could be a policy to take to the people of brighton and else where in 2015.
I’m aware there are a fair number of complexities involved, but if timing and union agreements (the two barriers mentioned) aren’t preventing Kitcat’s faction from cutting the pay of the poorest (ie the current proposals) why should they prevent them from cutting the pay of the highest paid instead (Neal Harding’s proposal)?
Seems like it would be quite possible to find a way through the legal complexities if there was the political will, but it’s just easier to pick on the binworkers instead.
Participatory budgeting sounds like a good idea to me.
Serious suggestion for B&H Council – participatory budgeting as a way to get out of this, followed by a referendum?
Yes, Chris is right, I’m afraid I made a mistake last night when I mentioned only three or four bin men losing out (I shouldn’t work late at night). There will indeed be others who will be losing a lower amount – nearer £1k, and certainly not a sum to be complacent about. But as Chris points out, they are being offered very reasonable compensation. Most of those in the very lowest paid jobs will gain.
I agree with what Judy has said, but would like to correct a detail. More than three bin men are adversely affected. Believe this refers to the number who would lose £4K. Many more will lose lesser amounts. I think the solution lies in finding some money to pay increased compensation to those affected (although the offer already made of three years salary as a lump some will be looked at enviously by those of us in similar circumstances who had to settle for pay protection rather than being offered cash!)
Add my name too.
time to override posturing and face-saving when the whole Green Party image is at stake. Look at an alternative package of car-parking charge hikes and scrapping pet projects that can be put to the electorate – let them help solve the quandary, not give it to officers who are not in sympathy with Green politics.
Thanks John and Judy. Was aware of some of what you explained but you have filled a few gaps.Am still unsure though why there is such a gap between what you have explained and comments others have made. If what you say is correct, why the “split” amongst the Green Councillors in Brighton? Still want to know what alternatives the 9 have in mind.
I work for an L/A and currently there are some awful cuts happening, and more proposed affecting the most most vulnerable which not many people have noticed, there is talk of councils going bankcrupt so am very aware of councils funding problems but how most seem to be unaware of the severity of the problems. Councils have no choice but to make cuts at the moment, the only argument is about where still not sure people realise that and clearly this issue is further complicated by the September deadline. However, as far as Brighton goes please please can someone explain what other proposals the 9 actually have for filling the funding gap. Who or what else will loose out ?
Last time I looked Labour and Conservatives came together in Brighton to vote down a Green budget that would have allowed more wiggle room.
This is partly the consequence of deciding to plough on administering a budget dictated by our political opponents rather than telling them to lie in the bed of their own making. Part of me would have liked to have seen Labour and Conservatives forced to work together, though I fear they’d have found a way to wriggle out of that one.
As for kicking Jason our of the party, can people stop doing second rate impressions of comedy Stalinists please. B&H Greens have yet to find someone they’d prefer to do the job than Jason. That would be a first step. Having a purge would simply be childish and unprincipled. Let’s be honest – no one really wants to take the rap for the state Brighton was left in by years of avoiding the serious issue of pay discrimination against women. Greens have decided to deal with it, under severe constraints. That’s not a defence of the way things have been handled – I don’t think we can accept pay cuts for already low paid workers – but it is a plea that people don’t approach the problem in quite such a simple minded way.
Rachel,
Mike Shone and John Coyne are right. The alternative – thanks to the single status requirement that was not dealt with by former Labour and Conservative administrations – would have been to raise the pay of staff of equal status to the level of those whose allowances have been overly generous. This would have resulted in a huge deficit and redundancies for those on low incomes, as well as a cut if services. Instead, many of those low paid, mainly women, have been levelled up. The decisions taken by the Green councillors is unpalatable but it is the least worst option, with compensation for those few (just three bin men, I believe) who will be adversely affected.
Unfortunately there is an element in our party that revels in stirring up discontent when they should, in fact, be supporting our first Green led council that has had to make some really difficult decisions, but also made some amazing achievements in really adverse conditions.
Please sign, share and show your support for Brighton’s workers. Make the Council act, now.
http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/brighton-and-hove-city-council-pay-cityclean-workers-a-fair-uncut-living-wage
Add my name, thanks
Yous get what you vote for. The whole corrupt self serving system stinks as bad as our streets at the moment. Which everway you cut the cake,red, green, blue, etc the government wins.
Batton down the hatches the seventies are coming back. If noone voted then we could organise something better, fairer and freer. Question what has the shitstem ever really given us when compared to what we give? The problem is that those of us who disagree with your form of goverment are given no chance to opt out. Hmnn, wonder why?
Embarrassed by the Brighton debacle
Rachel,
Did you see an email message to members from Natalie Bennett on 1st June?
It contained the following:-
“An update from Brighton from Caroline Lucas MP and Jason Kitcat, Green Council leader
We’re now going full steam ahead on the Hanover by-election … this is the most important by-election we have had to contest, so please do help if you can.
You may have seen media coverage about the difficult process the Green administration is facing, as part of pay and allowances negotiations, which have to be finished by September this year.
The so-called ‘Single Status’ review was agreed by unions and the National Joint Council (NJC) for Local Government Services to ensure fair allowances for council staff, such as cleaners, care workers and waste collectors. The process was supposed to have been completed by all local authorities by 2007, but successive Conservative and Labour administrations in Brighton and Hove failed to finish this complex and difficult task, leaving the current Green group to take the urgent action needed to clean up the mess left by the other parties.
GMB and Unison are the main unions involved. Basic wages are not affected – and the Council remains committed to paying a Living Wage, having spearheaded a campaign on this throughout the city. The initial proposals following the first round of negotiations are now being presented to staff during 90 days of consultation, which will end in August. Councillors will continue to work closely with officers to seek to establish ways to improve the initial proposals.
Following its Annual meeting last Thursday, the council is continuing to be led by a strong team of Green councillors. After delivering on big ticket election promises, such as the living wage for council staff, One Planet City status (a world first), 20mph speed limits across the city centre and protecting major third sector funding, the Green council is now working on further transport improvements, resisting the worst of the welfare cuts, securing a Greater Brighton City Deal and significantly boosting recycling rates…”
When I saw that, I thought we were going to be OK
John
So, to be clear gtr like John I was not saying there is no alternative, I was asking the question what are the alternatives in the light of what Mike Shone said. It looks like “radical compression of wage differentials” is not the simple solution some would like from John Coynes last post. Anyone disagree with him ?
I’d not heard about the joint statement from Caroline Lucas and Jason Kitcat, can someone explain ? And do the 9 who wrote the open letter support that ? And what proposals that are realistic do the 9 have ?
Like a lot of people I’m trying to respond and deflect the anti-green propaganda that is appearing on F/B Twitter and in real life. Please can one of the 9 and or anyone who knows respond and help myself and others do that.
As a Green Party activist and local authority candidate in London, I fully support this letter as the Green Party has to rescue itself from this strategic mess in Brighton, and Kitcat should be censured
Hello GTR,
Had a quick look at that link. There’s a lot of attraction in a radical compression of wage differentials, but I doubt it would be doable even if the minority Green administration could persuade one of the other parties to agree it.
Timing is one problem as the equalisation has to be done by September as I understand it; national pay agreements with the unions is another problem.
To be clear on my above posting: it’s not that “There is No Alternative”. There are indeed alternatives, but they all appear to have worse consequences for the people of B&H, especially those who depend most on council services.
John Coyne (Liverpool)
To those like Rachel and John who seem to be claiming “there was no alternative” (where have I heard that line of reasoning before?..) see Neil Hardings blog for a debunking of some common myths and lies, and a simple alternative proposal:
http://neilharding.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/why-brighton-hove-council-pay-cuts-are.html
To summarise: cap council pay at £50k, thus aiming cuts at the most well-off, not the poorest. Should be obvious!
Still no-one has answered my question about examining the long-term structural issues around why this situation happened in the first place, and preventing it in future.
Personally, I’d argue it flags up the pitfalls of seeking radical change by electoral methods: once in a position of significant decision-making power, politicians get increasingly out of touch with their roots, gradually moving to a more managerial/bureaucratic perspective, and leading to this kind of reactionary arrogance.
I don’t expect many Greens to agree with that, as it would challenge their raison d’etre itself, but any kind of genuinely in-depth analysis would be a step forward!
The heads-in-the-sand approach of blaming a few bad apples in the party just doesn’t wash, because the same phenomenon has been replicated in other places where green or progressive parties have gotten into positions of power.
Rachel above poses the right question.
There is no doubt that imposing a reduction to the take home pay of some of our lowest paid workers indeed runs completely contrary to our principle of social justice.
The difficulty with that is that the special circumstances of this pay equalisation dispute create a situation where avoiding that reduction looks like causing major cuts in services and possibly jobs which will lead to greater detriment to even harder pressed citizens in Brighton and Hove. It looks like the unacceptable option which the Nine councillors reject may be the only alternative to even more unacceptable options.
Reading this situation from a distance, it’s not possible to have any certainty, but I have asked some of the Nine what their proposal for a settlement would be.
A few days ago, there was a joint statement from Caroline Lucas and Jason Kitcat which looked like a basis for unity and looked forward to improvements in the pay offer. It would help those of us who are trying to deflect opponents’ opportunistic attacks on the Green Party if the Nine could see their way to get behind that statement.
Hi, can someone who understands the situation respond to Mike Shone, ? Is he correct, totally, partially in what he says ? Have councilors in Brighton who have written the letter got a clear understanding of how the equalisation can be funded ? I’d assumed it would mean cuts to something else and assumed that was one of the stumbling blocks.
I guess if I were in Brighton I would be on the picket line myself, but I’m not and all I can do is send solidarity/best wishes to all attempting to resolve this dispute.
I am though really hoping that someone can explain that Mike Shone is wrong, because if he’s right not sure what all this is about to be honest?
Add my name too please.
And when Kitcat has gone, put those fucking allotment fees back down.
Cocks.
I am a member of the Green Party and I support the Citycleanworkers in Brighton
It is heartening to see fellow Greens willing to stand up with working class people, and not sacrifice principle for short term gain.
My party right or wrong is as alien to me as, My Country right or Wrong.
I support this letter.
Lynton North (West Devon GP)
If the councillors responsible for these pay cuts don’t back down, can they be kicked out of the Green Party? What is the mechanism for that?
More importantly, what does the GP need to change to prevent a similar situation occuring again?
Because if people can get elected on a GP ticket and then implement austerity policies anyway then there’s no point whatsoever in voting green…
Please add my name,
I’m a GP member in Lewisham and a PCS rep.
Although the GMB have run a misleading campaign against the Green members on the Council this is still a disgrace. Pay cuts aren’t acceptable for already low-paid workers.
Thanks for telling me I don’t understand the situation Al and Adam, but can you tell me what they are doing to fix this. Why, e.g. has Kitcat not been kicked out the party, or councillors resigned from the executive? This may not be exactly Green Party vs GMB, but if the Green Party is going to take on running a council they have to accept responsibility for what that council does, or resign their position.
Isn’t it the case that to maintain all allowances without any cuts to any allowances under, the Single Status legislation, would cost the Brighton and Hove City Council between £4m to £23m.
And isn’t this because for equalisation of payments of work of equal value every allowance for those above the lowest valued would have to be increased relatively to maintain its relative evaluation. And wouldn’t these millions have to come from large cuts in jobs to council employees and cuts in services to the residents of Brighton?
Isn’t it also the case that the Council political leadership has sought to delay the losses to the binmen and street cleaners with approximately three years compensation and a commitment to find other ways of them earning extra.
So isn’t the choice between no cuts in allowances and a knock on of lots of cuts to jobs and services , on the one hand , and what the Green Party administration has proposed which seems to be cushioned cuts for a section of the workforce and avoiding large knock on cuts in jobs and services to the people of Brighton.
My name too.
Please add my name. I am a local Green Party activist in Brighton.
As a Brighton Green Party member I would also like to add my name and support to this letter. I believe that this dispute could have been avoided – devolving responsibility to officers was, in my view, an appalling error of judgement; I believe that if political leadership was reasserted in the spirit of local Party policy on the issues, it could still be resolved.
Please add my name (Duncan Roy) to this letter. The traitors who took these decisions do not, as a rule, go out canvassing for the Green Party. They have now lost their activists.
Please add my name. Solidarity with the strikers and with all fellow Greens who continue to stand up for our principles of social justice.
For the sake of the Green Party, the real alternative to the LibLabCon establishment (and also UKIP), and also the people of Brighton & Hove, this dispute needs to be resolved soon and a fair compromise that can benefit both parties needs to be reached. Surely, Brighton and Hove council have explained to the workers that it is not their fault (but that of the previous, Conservative-dominated administration) this situation happened?
Please add my name
I am still puzzled why these Councillors think that any reduction in take home pay for public sector workers is wrong and yet they have taken decisions recently with that very effect. Councillors Kennedy and Phillips were quite happy to raise their hands to impose parking charges of up to £1000 a year on school staff, when there were clear alternatives available. Councillor Jones was very supportive of these charges being resisted, but was ultimately unable to protect staff. So it does ring rather hallow to see the same people now proclaiming their commitment to protecting pay. A pay cut is a pay cut whether it is your basic pay or an unavoidable charge. Overall, this feels much more about the internal politics of the Green Party than anything else.
Alisdair
The fact that you ask this question pre-supposes you haven’t grasped the nature of the political landscape in this instance. This isn’t Green Party v GMB (even though GMB have attempted to make it so). This is Council v GMB – these two are different.
I sincerely hope, and am confident that wise heads will prevail – and an amicable solution is reached to this unnecessary unpleasantness.
Fully agree with the statement above.
Ali – I don’t think that’s fair – at least some of the people in this letter have been publicly and actively doing everything they can to get the council leader out of his job and reverse the decisions which have been made.
Please add my name. Well done to those who organised this statement.
If the Greens care so much about this then they can stop it as they lead the Council in Brighton. Truth is there is a battle between Red-Greens and Blue-Greens on the council. Result is poor people suffer in Brighton.
So given you’re running the council, what are you actually going to do to sort this? other than issue statements saying you understand all the sides and you wish everyone just got on.