People working for Coventry City Council who earn less than £21,000 have been told they won’t get a bonus they were promised.
Bosses agreed last month that £600,000 would be put aside to give some low paid workers £250 this year to help them deal with a two-year pay freeze imposed by the government.
However, the body representing Coventry’s council and 399 other authorities, Local Government Employers, has now refused to make the offer to workers, because of cutbacks.
Officials in Coventry have subsequently voted not to stump up the cash themselves.
Councillor Dave Nellist, who’d asked them to step in, said: “Inflation is at 4.5%, and items such as food and fuel are rising faster that that, so a two-year pay freeze is actually a 10% paycut!
“I’m not asking the Labour Council to break away from national negotiations. This would be a payment in addition to those national negotiations.”
“That has a strong tradition in Coventry, particularly in the well organised engineering factories of the past, where better terms and conditions were achieved in our city, and became the yardstick by which other cities measured their trade union pay and conditions.”
"For he that hath, to him shall be given; and he that hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he hath." [Mark 4:25]
