Council workers from across the region are set to lobby a meeting in Sandwell tomorrow (July 21st) as part of a battle to get the real living wage introduced.
As well as calling for the lowest paid local authority employees to be paid £8.45 an hour – £9.75 an hour in London – from April next year, unions are also seeking a 5% pay rise across the board.
Claire Campbell, UNISON West Midlands regional head of local government, said eight years of salary increases being frozen or capped at 1% had taken a toll on workers.
“Local government has the lowest paid workers in the public sector,” she said. “Many council employees and their families are struggling to keep afloat. With every price increase, their standard of living gets worse.
“This lobby is part of an ongoing campaign to ensure local government workers are paid a fair wage for the work they do.
“These are the people who clean our streets, open our libraries and look after our young people, and after enduring eight years of real pay cuts they deserve so much better.”
