Birmingham City Council and Unite: Refuse Workers’ Pay Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb
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Birmingham City Council and Unite: Refuse Workers’ Pay
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts(1 day, 11 hours ago)
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Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
The Conservative Party in Birmingham should not wash its hands of some of the part it played in creating the crisis that Birmingham is facing overall. Birmingham’s recent history has seen one of the largest equal pay crises in modern times. Over the past 15 years, this has cost the council and the people of Birmingham a great deal of money. In October last year, the council signed the agreement with the unions to settle the historic equal pay claims that had amounted. This was a significant step forward to move past a dark moment in the city’s history and in resetting relationships with staff and their trade union representatives. Talks are ongoing to resolve this current issue.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, I do not quite understand what went wrong last May, because an agreement was reached and the news was that the commissioners had blocked that deal. Have the Government looked any further into this to be sure of exactly what happened, what went wrong and how it can be improved?