Mark Jenkinson MP has urged Cumberland Council to harmonise wage rates across the authority, as it transpires that the failure to do so is to lead to bin strikes later in the week, raising the prospect of extended strike action and waste piling up as we saw in 2019.
The Member of Parliament for Workington first raised the issue with Council in July 2022, and has corresponded with them and the two main unions in Allerdale Waste Services, Unite and the GMB, since.
In the Copeland area, despite providing the same services to the same council, refuse collectors are paid nearly 20% more than those in Allerdale, but additionally they also get three times the employer pension contribution and an extra weeks holiday every year.
This return to the #BinChaos we saw when Labour was last in charge was entirely avoidable. And the Labour Executive of Cumberland Council must work to avoid it.
I wrote to the shadow council last July about this, on learning that they had no plans to harmonise wages across the authority. We were told how important it was that we all paid the same council tax, which equates to a 7% hike in Allerdale. This week I’ve written to the Finance Portfolio Holder to remind her of this and to urge her to harmonise wage rates and end this dispute
I’m not a fan of asking for inflation-busting pay rises, as there’ll be no rush for pay decreases if we saw price deflation - but this is unjustifiable - across the council there are people doing the same job side by side for different pay rates.
Mark Jenkinson MP
Allerdale Waste Services is a wholly owned company, formed when Mark Jenkinson MP was Deputy Leader of Allerdale Borough Council, in response to the chaos that had ensued when the previous Labour Executive had neglected to get their ‘gold-plated’ new contract with FCC Environment signed, and the private company were unable to provide the cuts requested by the then-Labour administration, leading to some parts of Allerdale not having bin collections for over a month.
In April, Cumberland council taxpayers across the former Allerdale district were whacked with a 6.7% increase because the Labour Executive decreed that “On balance we believe it is important to ensure that all residents in the Cumberland area pay the same, per council tax band, for the services that Cumberland delivers”.
it is unfortunate that the same scruples aren’t applied to the services Allerdale ratepayers receive, or to the wage rates for all employees at the same grade, doing the same job for the same council.
On balance we believe it is important to ensure that all residents in the Cumberland area pay the same, per council tax band, for the services that Cumberland delivers.
Labour’s justification to full council when hiking council tax by 6.7%
