Bolton: Thousands of Unison members to vote on strike action

The ballot will involve school support staff, refuse collectors, street lighting workers, social workers and library and museum staff.

Union members in Bolton will be joining their colleagues all around the country after many of them found their employers pay offers to be unacceptable.

Bolton Unison branch acting secretary Christine Collins said: “The joint union pay claim for 2023/24 was for 12.7 per cent.

“This was based on the government’s own inflation projection for the coming months, plus two per cent, so workers could start to catch up after years of below-inflation pay increases.

Bolton Unison acting branch secretary Christine Collins (Image: Unison)

“The offer that came back was a flat offer of £1,925, which amounts to roughly nine per cent for the lowest-paid, with lower percentages for people further up the pay spine.

“For school employees who are on term-time contracts, this offer will work out to be considerably less.

“After years of government austerity we now have a cost of living crisis that council and school workers did not create.

“We are calling on our members to vote yes to industrial action.

“No one wants to take action but as a trade union we have to keep focussed on fighting for our members.

“Hopefully the employers will see sense and come back to the negotiating table with an improved offer.”

Across the country, around 370,000 Unison members will be invited to take part in the ballot.

In Bolton, thousands of council and school workers have already won a deal worth £296,000 in backdated pay to settle a row over miscalculated holiday pay.

Unison representative and the council refuse collection worker Tony Cowell said this showed the difference that his union’s campaigns can make.

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He said: “Council workers have every right to expect decent pay.

“We recently secured back pay of nearly three hundred thousand pounds for over two thousand workers.

“After almost two years of a constant battle, it was holiday pay that workers should have already received but we got there in the end.

“It shows what we can achieve collectively with the support of the union.

“Together we can make a difference, but we have to be willing to make a stand.”

Ballot papers will be sent out from May 23.