The headline to this article should read more than 1,300 workers set for pay cut. 24% of 5,500 jobs = 1,320. Why the secrecy about exactly who stands to lose and gain in this exercise, surely it's in everyone's interest to know ?

I bet none of these numpty managers in the town hall are having their pay cut. The council really are a complete joke. Why are they having to cut pay? To pay for the vast amounts that they squander, thats why. Again, the tax payers lose out to these thieves in power.

How did it get to this? The Union should have got a grip of this years ago.

My dad is 63 yrs old, needs a new hip and yet gets up at 6 every morning to go to his work as a school caretaker. He should by now be happily retired as prior to this he had a good blue collar job, yet, thanks to this govt nicking most of his pension he still has to go out in all weather simply to earn a crust. Now this ragbag council have taken £1500 a year off him. Its an absolute disgrace. They should all hang their heads in shame!

My husband is one of the council officers most severly affected by the so called job evaluation scheme, I think it important to set some facts onto the table right now. BWDBC had choices in how the pay evaluation criteria was set they may like to comment on which they chose to leave out and why.
Pay cuts are much more severe than your article indicates - his pay cut equates to £13,500 and there are those harder hit than him. The Council are saying that there is no evidence to prove work he has been doing for over 3 years and yet they ignore the post holder, job description and line manager comments in coming to that conclusion.
Unfortunatly what this council is doing is being mirrored across the country with more to come - the next move requires the post holder to actually sign to agree the change - and if you don't? You guessed it they sack them! (They call it dismiss and re-engage, nice euphamism don't you think?)he is a Unison Union member and looks forward to their support in our efforts to get this injustice put right because believe you me the fight hasn't yet begun. As a member of the Community Safety Unit he is really worried about the affect on the community as staff moral is at an all time low and the desire to do their best for our local residents has been effectively wiped out. In light of threats to Police pay Community Safety is now at the bottom of the Governments agenda - the council are clearly keen to follow suit.

I work in a school and the majority of non-teaching staff have had their pay cut. Its disgusting as these people are low paid as it is

Yet the Coalition have awarded them selves with a min 10% pay increase !!!They make me sick

Oh come on..... just look at the job ads to see how overpaid council staff are! If they were a private sector company they would have gone bust years ago.

Good riddance to those who decide they want to put themselves at the mercy of the private sector and do a proper days work.... slackers

Its always the fat cats that get wage rises but normal workers always remain on low wages.....

What a joke, the Coalition award the Chief Executive and all his Directors a 10% increase, they all earn over 120k per year. At the sane time they reduce manual workers pay from 18k, (not a lot these days),to 13 k. What about their pensions, most workers pensions are based on their final salary. Graham Burgess does well with a nice 16k increase bringing his salary to £ 162000 whilst school caretakers and care workers lose 4k bringing them to just above the minimum wage.There are over 100 Directors in Town Hall none live in the Borough and pay their Council Tax to other authorities. Yet Blackburn workers are reduced to the minimum wage, now on a reduced pension. It is absolutely disgaceful. Colin Rigby is obviously picking up tips from Waghat on how to cheat and con people

School caretakers? Those are the dubious characters that hang around in their sheds all day selling 'singles' to the kids? I think minimum wage plus pension is a fair amount for what they do. As for care workers, they are notoriously low paid and more should be done to increase their salaries for what must be a tough job.

And I really don't think there are over 100 directors at Town Hall all earning above £120k. Think you might have some figures mixed up there.

how can the the Tory led coalition justify a 10% increase for the directors and a 33% cut for the already low paid workers. rigby like a true Tory doesn't give a monkeys for the low paid workers. foster and melia are just following along Dare not to rock the boat.

To the numpty from Burnley, get your facts right before you start slagging off the Council workers. The Job Evaluation scheme stinks, and has affected a lot of the professional workers and support staff whos lifes will be severely affected by the pay cuts. Yes the management are not affected which is no surprise there. This is not the end of the matter and will be fought to the end. The Council should not be able to get away with this. How can they justify this? The Chief Executive and Management staff should be made accountable. Come on Union Members make a stance against this, and show the Council the workers will not lie down and take this. Bully-boy tactics from the Council spring to mind i.e. sign the letter or you will be on 90 days notice!!!

I simply said that the caretakers should now be earning what they are worth. A lot of council employees have had a cushy number for such a long time. This review is long overdue. And I do speak from experience having worked closely with several officers of numerous different councils across Lancashire and beyond.

Whether or not you agree with the principle of 'Job Evaluation' (or manipulation of the figures as it should be known)the disgusting thing is that the long winded process and clearly manufactured outcome have come to a conclusion the week before Christmas. Thank you very much to Scrooge and his cronies for the timing, how considerate of you to let me have to tell my wife and family that I am facing a £4,000 pay cut at this supposedly happy time. Peace and good will to all men... hmmm I don't think so

As one of the many who can now look forward to a much lower salary following the secretive and biased Job "Evaluation" process, I would like to know who exactly has gained. Please could someone comment who will be getting an increase? Where are all these people and why are they so much more valued than everyone else?! All I have to look forward to in 2008 thanks to BWDBC is selling my house.

The way the ruling "3in a bed" coalition and senior management have dealt with this issue shows the obvious contempt they have for the staff who have worked so hard to get the Authority "Excellent" status - joke!! They now expect the same staff to continue for thousands less, I don't think so. There will be a mass exodus of quality officers which BwDBC cannot afford to lose. Happy Christmas - NOT.

The way I see it if the council want to take upto 25% off various staff then the staff affected stop working say thursday afternoon and surf the tinterweb can the council not see the backlash and REAL cost of this exercise? It's the Council Tax payers of Blackburn who will probably ultimately pay the cost in a poorer service being delivered.

The Job Evaluation process undertaken by this Council laughs in the face of its claims to value its employers and its aspirations to retain and recruit high quality staff. The entire process has been morally corrupt from start to finish. Is it a coincidence that the Department worst affected is Regeneration and Housing?? I think not...we are paying the price for years of mis management and over spend by the powers that be...not that they give two hoots, sitting pretty on their self imposed 10% pay hike! Merry christmas!

What most people do not seem to realise is that most non-teaching staff in schools have lost between £2500 and £5000 per year. Blackburn Council have not taken into account the fact that most school staff are only paid pro rata and the reductions will put many people on the bread line.

My wife works at the Town Hall and has suffered a substantial decrease in her salary. Infact she can't find anyone who has received an increase.Some staff were going home in tears on Friday night.Council staff have mortgages to pay like everyone else. What is so sickening is that the chief officers have just received a 10% increase (no doubt reccomended by themselves).The councillors should be ashamed of themselves but what can you expect from tories such as Colin Rigby and the Liberals who will not say anything against this because retaining power on the council is more important to them than any sense of ethical or moral behaviour. What is also so cynical and coldly calculating is that the coalition have abused what should have been a good idea to create equal pay and used it as an excuse to reduce pay. They admit themselves that the gap has only been "reduced by 3%from 19% to !6%" These proposals are completely unethical and immoral.I hope that the staff have the sense to vote for strike action as soon as possible.

what gets me is that the council are telling people that they may face a cut of 25% of their salary (or more) but hasn't done a single thing to support them through this traumatic time. If these cuts HAD to be made (and I don't think they did) the whole thing should have been handled much better. So much for valuing staff.

Anyone hoping for UNISON to come up with anything will be waiting a long time, they started this off. They and the council are an utter disgrace, to do something so life changing to their own members and employees just so some lower paid women get a few more quid, and just before Christmas. Well I hope all their professional staff leave, lets see how they fare!

The council leader Coun Colin Rigby needs to get his facts straight before he signs of any media brief. As quoted he states that the process was put into place to reduce the pay gap between men and women. Was this an exercise Mr Rigby to make sure men came out with more money than women. Could Mr Rigby inform the readers why my wife who works alongside a male colleague, both doing the same job, both with exactly the same job description, both currently on the same pay scale came out with a lot less points than him so therefore on paper could financially lose more money than him.

The comments from council leaders saying that the process has been done to slash the gap between male and female staff is utter rubbish. The Gap has been reduced from 18% to 16%, a huge difference I'm sure you will agree. This was purely and simply an exercise to slash the wage bill. Staff are leaving in droves already and who can blame them when they face a paycut of around 30%!!

I must say I am rather peturbed by all this. Surely the Council cannot get away with this. This is a downright disgrace. The leader of the Council has obviously been told what to say. This is not a fair scheme. People's lives are affected. How can the Chief Executive and Directors be awarded pay rises when all this is going on?? Heads must roll, and answers must be given. Come on staff letttts get ready to rumble!!!!!

So, people who cheat the benefit system remain as decision makers and award themselves a 10% pay rise (well above inflation!) but robs the very staff who actually undertake the council’s hard work in achieving continual “excellent” status. To think that the unions were considering strike action for additional 0.5% pay rise not long ago, when individuals are now looking at 33% pay loss, husband and wife work for the council - £20K household loss. What a joke. Excuse me while I look for a tent to move into.

The decision of the Council to cut 1/3 or ¼ of pay from 24% of it staff is nothing more than a scandal, when you take into account the massive salarys and pay rise Graham Burgess and his cronies will receive. My partner having worked for the council for over 7 years has been working on relieving poverty within the Borough, and now the council have put hundreds of their employees into the low pay bracket and hundreds if not thousands of staff will be able to claim income support. Many of my partners colleagues who have professional qualification to do their jobs are seriously thinking they will lose their homes, as their mortgages are based on the salary that they use to have. Not to mention any loans they have taken out.
Many people working in the regeneration teams are funded not from the Boroughs coffers but from out side funding and yet they have been told their salaries will be cut by £5k - £11k. This extra money will have to go back to these outside organisations as under spend and yet the officers will still be expected to meet targets, manage budgets in the region of £500,00 - £4000,000 and deliver a first class service. Many of the staff will leave their jobs over the next 12 months as they have no other option but to find higher paid jobs to meet their commitments. The council will lose big time as between the different departments the amount of experience is immense. They will lose the heart of the machine that has made the council one of the best. Can someone please tell me who has won pay wise as I have not yet heard of any one who has gained from this fiasco?

Unison have been a joke and when the bad news comes out our halfwit Branch Secretary resigns. She has been a joke for years and staff wouldnt be in this mess if there had been someone competent leading the Union response.

Could someone please send the URL link of this webpage to the Chief Executive and Directors to show the level of feeling that is being expressed over this scandalous situation???

My husband will lose around £7000 per year. With our first baby due any day, it is a massive worry for us as this equates to the year's nursery fees when I have to return to work. The process has been handled all wrong, and to make matters worse, I am set to go through the same process with another local authority. I really don't know how we will continue to meet all of our outgoings.

They've introduced performance related pay then ?

Management have just tried to make the best of the farce that the Central Government have forced onto them. The Unions are the real culprits as they came up with the whole scheme in the first place.
The current winners will only benefit for a short while, as they're sure to be shut down or tendered out in the not too distant future.
The fact that the unions haven't foreseen any of this defies belief.
Anyone who believes that our current free-market loving government would endorse such Marxist-style social engineering without some sort of ulterior motive must have the mental capacity of a Tellytubby.

I am one of the so called "over paid" Council Officers facing a pay cut. When I started with the Council 3 years ago, I took a 20% pay cut in order to come into a more meaningful job in public service. I am now facing a further £7k p.a. drop in salary which will mean I will have no option but to leave the Council and return to a better paid (but less meaningful) job in the private sector as I will be unable to afford the mortgage, childcare and the general costs of modern day life. The Council have not followed the National Guidance regarding the job evaluation process and this is why the union dropped out of negotiations with them. Councillors have been kept in the dark on the process and the foreseeable impact on so many key Council staff. These key staff will have to leave and take their skills and experience somewhere else where they are treated like human beings WITH feelings. As more people leave the impact on the local services will be disastrous as they will fail to recruit on the meager wages that are being offered. This will further erode the performance and status of the Council and lead to a vicious downward spiral effect. Hopefully the Council will see the light when recalling the decision and reconsidering the facts. They may have to when they hear that the the union and hundreds of Council employees are considering taking legal action for constructive dismissal!! Ironically if legal action is taken this will hit the Council, its resources, services and ultimately its service users. Merry Christmas from the Council!!!

Workers of the world unite you have nothing to loose but your chains. - I'ts time you got the ballot papers out, get the brazier going and show some backbone. nothing is ever given to you - now is the time to stand up and fight. Go for it support will be there!!!

I also work for the council and fortunately am one of the people who have benefited. For a long time I have been at a low wage doing a hard but rewarding job on the front line. Although the people who I work with value me I had always felt that the white collar workers didn't. I am glad to see that the council has followed the governments legislation to equalise pay and conditions. I could never understand why someone who worked in an office opening post, photocopying and filing and answer the phone a few times earned a few £1000 a year more than me.

Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council has threatened me with a life-altering pay cut of £6,000 per year following its so called pay review. If these pay cuts are accepted , or if the council unscrupulously imposes them using the 'fire and re-hire' loophole, I shall seriously struggle to keep up essential payments ,in particular my mortgage. Needless to say, the prospect of this happening is distressing to the point of affecting the health of all those involved including their families.

Morale, trust and employment relations at the council have obviously reached an all time low. I am sorry if this affects the services that council taxpayers deserve, but this inevitably will get far worse as staff with experience and expertise are forced to leave.

The purpose of these reviews is ostensibly to address pay inequality. I cannot help feeling that Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council has manipulated its 'pay line' to make already low paid employees like myself pay for its own equal pay shortcomings.

There are a number of questions which the Council’s senior management need to answer.
1) It claims to have spent £13million on this process. Where has this money gone?

2)Is this a way to cull the number of staff and avoid having to pay redundancy payments?

3)Why when other Councils that have already gone through the process can offer their staff three years salary protection from the date of notice why can Blackburn with Darwen only manage one?

4)Are they looking to reduce their services completely and then commission services from external organisations such as Capita. Will any of the senior management team be taking up roles as non executive directors with Capita in the near future? See point one again as to where the £13 million has been spent.

My sister is devastated at the news that her low paid job is now going to pay her 3K less in twelve months time. when she started working for the council it was a dream come true after 3 years at college.She loves her job and people and families she works with. But in 12 months time she will not be able to pay the rent and bills and will have to move back home with mum or me. At 24 years of age who wants not to be independent. She is so stressed out she is going to her Dr who I believe will sign her off on the sick. What will the council do if everyone goes on the sick for six months with stress? Meltdown.

The disparity which has emanated from this procewss is a disgrace.How can Mr Burgess justify the £160k which he earns when there are blue collar workers,already poorly paid,having to face a hefty pay cut. If Rigby and his cronies think this is fair then they have no right to be running the Council.Just remember,Colin,most of the employees who have been kicked in the b******ks are on the electoreal roll of this Borough....

Yes! great dock all the blue collor wages..THEN when they've all found new jobs..the white collor workers can do their jobs.lol AS IF>

Are these cuts to pay Waghat to keep him from fiddling benefits. Or are they for the fat cats who don't even live in the Borough.

Scrooge is alive and kicking, only this time there are three of them Foster Rigby and their muppet Melia

Just what Mr. Brown wanted..the people more reliant on the state..more control over us.

I dont know if any of you remember but it was actions similar to this which bought about the "winter of discontent" where even the dead couldn't be buried, the streets were piled high with rubbish ect ect..I see history is about to repeat it's self ?

Winter of Discontent 1978-9: 'We struck because Labour betrayed us'

MUCH OF the media thinks there is an easy answer to threatened strikes at the moment. It is to say that they could mean a return to the Winter of Discontent of 1978-9. The argument goes that of course everyone knows the Winter of Discontent was a disastrous period when trade unionists were too strong.

New Labour figures argue that the only people who gained from the strikes were the Tories, who won the election in 1979. The lesson, they say, is not to strike and to keep backing the government. The harsh reality of the Winter of Discontent is that workers were forced to fight back against attacks from their own Labour government. Workers stopped being "loyal" to Labour because Labour had not been loyal to them.

When Labour was elected in 1974 its manifesto promised, "It is our intention to bring about a fundamental and irreversible shift in the balance of power and wealth in favour of working people and their families." In fact the 1974-9 government imposed the greatest attacks on working class living standards since the hungry years of the 1930s.

* Housing-by 1978 fewer council houses were being built than in any year since the Second World War.
* Health-25,000 hospital beds went in the first two years of the Labour government.
* Education-teachers suffered large scale redundancies for the first time in living memory.
* Prices-doubled between February 1974 and December 1978.
* Jobs-1,000 a day went in Labour's first three years.
* Unemployment was 500,000 in 1974. It reached 1.6 million in 1976.
* Wages-a family of four on average earnings was worse off in 1979 than in 1974.

Behind those cold statistics lay the shattered lives of millions of working people.

It wasn't the Winter of Discontent that turned people against the government. Labour's support collapsed well before anyone went on strike. On 4 November 1976 Labour lost two "rock solid" seats-Walsall North and Workington-and came within a whisker of losing Newcastle Central. In March 1977 Labour lost the Birmingham seat of Stechford on a 17.5 percent swing to the Tories.

A month later the unthinkable happened. Labour lost Ashfield to the Tories. It was a mining constituency where Labour had a 23,000 majority. The losses meant Labour, now led by James Callaghan, stayed in office only through a pact with the Liberals, and then through deals with the Welsh and Scottish nationalist parties, and even with the Ulster Unionists. With Labour reeling, the bosses piled on their own pressure. Chancellor Denis Healey cut tax on big business in November 1974, giving big companies an extra £800 million a year profit.

But they wanted more, and in the summers of 1975 and 1976 engineered a collapse in the value of the pound by shifting money abroad. The government gave them more. It was never enough for the bosses, and they stepped up their blackmail. CBI director-general Campbell Adamson later recalled: "We certainly discussed an investment strike. We also discussed various things about not paying various taxes, and a list of things which in themselves would not have been legal."

The unelected governor of the Bank of England told the government on 30 June 1975 that the pound was plummeting. Labour immediately implemented harsh wage curbs. Pay was held well under the rate of inflation, so living standards fell. At first Labour introduced a £6 limit on wage rises. The £6 was about 10 percent of average wages. Inflation was roaring at 24.2 percent. A second stage of incomes policy in August 1976 brought a 4.5 percent limit on wage rises. Inflation was 16.5 percent.

Still British companies caused financial panic until, in September 1976, Denis Healey went cap in hand to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a loan to prop up the value of the pound. The IMF demanded deep cuts in return.

But while the bankers and the employers attacked, the union leaders did their best to stop workers' struggles breaking out. TUC leaders had forged an agreement with the Labour government in 1974 called the Social Contract. The union leaders, especially left wing ones like Hugh Scanlon of the engineers' AEU and Jack Jones of the TGWU, often complained about the government's assault on workers' living standards.

But they offered no alternative to standing by the Labour government. Jones told his union's 1975 conference, "We simply must help to keep this Labour government in office and stand by it during this terrible economic crisis."

In 1976 the Seamen's Union threatened strike action over a long overdue pay award. The general secretary of the TUC, Len Murray, told them, "By god, we'll make sure no union supports you. We'll cripple you."

The first ever national firefighters' strike took place the following year. The TUC voted narrowly not to back them, and the government sent in troops. Three major strikes by groups of skilled workers in 1977 collapsed after trade union leaders instructed other workers to cross their picket lines. The Winter of Discontent was the bursting of a dam, an outburst of feeling over five years of betrayal and disappointment.

Right wing propaganda of the time (endlessly repeated in Tory broadcasts for decades afterwards) was of picket lines at hospitals and of "the dead kept unburied". But then and now nobody talks about the reasons for the strikes, the harsh cuts and the low pay.

As an ambulance worker told Socialist Worker in 1979, when 1.5 million public sector workers were on strike, "We don't mind the patients crapping on us, but we're not putting up with the government doing it." A council worker said, "We had to strike because Labour betrayed us." Throughout 1978 the feeling had grown for a battle over pay. There would have been disputes over pay by electricity supply workers and miners had it not been for the intervention of the union leaders.

The union leaders could no longer hold back the flood. Tanker drivers, council workers, water workers and others struck that winter against Labour's 5 percent pay limit. These workers were not crazed militants. The tanker drivers, for example, wanted £65 for a 40-hour week. They were fed up with a life of long hours and low pay. They received such small allowances for overnight stops that they were forced to sleep three to a room in dirty hostels.

Such people should have been natural supporters of Labour. But Labour had let them down so sharply that they revolted. Health workers wanted a decent NHS and a proper living for themselves. Labour offered neither. Many of the strikes won.

But the experience of Labour in office, and the lack of resistance from the labour movement had taken their toll. None of the left Labour or trade union leaders turned the seething bitterness of working class people into a left wing challenge to Labour. The biggest force to the left of Labour was the Communist Party. It slammed the government's "Social Contrick". But it placed its faith in the left Labour MPs and union leaders, and would not break from them.

The far left was far too small to influence masses of workers. So the right, the Tories and, to a lesser extent, the Nazis built from the despair. The confident working class activists who had brought down the Tories five years previously were utterly demoralised.

New Labour is again creating enormous bitterness and anger through pro-business policies. The crisis at the heart of New Labour has eroded the party's base of members and activists. We need a wave of strikes again but we also need political generalisation to the left.

There is no reason why this should not happen. There is a much broader sense of the failings of privatisation and the market than there was in 1979. There is also the experience of the anti-capitalist movement and the significant minority of people who back the anti-war protests. There are the Socialist Alliance and Scottish Socialist Party.

The challenge is to transform the general anger with New Labour on a range of different issues into a united political force with socialist ideas at its heart.

© Copyright Socialist Worker (unless otherwise stated). You may republish if you leave this notice in place.

Please keep it short and sweet.Really could NOT be bothered to read all your sh1te,as i have much more important things to do.Like finding ways to pay my morgage.THANK YOU MR BURGESS

I know,lets run a LET poll and see how the figures change over night.Just jot down numbers before you go to sleep.THEN WATCH IN AWE AS A TOTAL LANSLIDE HAPPENS IN THE MIDNIGHT HOURS.judge for yourself !!!!!

I have read most of these posts with interest and have a couple of observations.

1. have the people whose wages been cut or increased been given about 15 months notice about it? if so, this is far more than most people in the private sector would get if the company they worked for faced difficulties. Like any other worker they have the right to seek employment elsewhere. Why do these people who work for the public sector believe they should be treated any differently than a private sector worker. 2. Graham Burgess holding his position of Chief Exec, carries exceptional responsibility and in the private sector in a company employing over 5000 people which is approximately the number of people he is responsible for toghether with the budgets that he is responsible for handling would attract a much higher salary that the 160k that he gets now.

3. Not sure if this is correct but the software that BWDBC used to address the salary issue I believe was weighted towards people who where either responsible for large budgets or health workers, perhaps someone could confirm if this is true.

The Job Evaluation process that delivered its results last Friday has resulted in many low paid workers losing large percentages of their income.What else can be expected of the rag bag coalition held together by their thirst for power, a fraudster and a couple of re-branded fascists!

Hmmm why hasn't Graham Burgess, Andrew Lightfoot and Harry Catherall gone through the same process? Scared that they know they are getting over paid?

Im not sure how much this whole process has cost but it's at the taxpayers expense. Not only do I live in the Borough but I work at the Town Hall. Part of my Council Tax has been ploughed into this process only for me to be told that my salary has been cut. I've never seen so many staff feeling demoralised and unhappy. The atmosphere is at an all time low and I think that the Chief Executive and his little sidekicks have a lot to answer for. How can they sleep at night knowing that so many staff are going to struggle financially and are having to sell their homes whilst the likes of Burgess goes home in his fancy car to his fancy home and even go on holiday to his second home abroad somewhere. It's distgusting!!

At the rear of the Town Hall is a plaque, in memory of Dennis Riley, who was murdered in the Town Hall by a petrol bomber. Try telling Mr Rileys family he had a cushey, overpaid job. !

How can it be said that this JE is to give equal pay? Following the JE a person doing the SAME job as me is to be paid £10,000 MORE that me following my £5,000 pay cut. The whole system is a complete joke.

I know that a lot of the Health & Fitness department are receiving rises. The 'instructors' are viewed as manual workers so will be on the old scale 5 digging holes in allotments whilst I move from scale 5 to 2 helping families and children around the borough.
I hope the manual worker redeployment list has an opening for me in the near future!

Burnley wrote:
Oh come on..... just look at the job ads to see how overpaid council staff are! If they were a private sector company they would have gone bust years ago. Good riddance to those who decide they want to put themselves at the mercy of the private sector and do a proper days work.... slackers

I work for the Council. I went to College for 4 years had to pass very hard exams to get the job I have today. My pay is much lower than in the private sector. I stand to lose £4000. I am now looking for a private sector job. My job is quite specialised let them find someone else to do it... You could not do it you numpty you wouldn't know where to start! Dickhead!!

Brilliant timing by the £160k pa bureacrats. My wife is one of those affected with a large salary decrease. When she took the job she had to take a recognised, professional teaching qualification in her own time as part of the job requirements - however this was viewed as irrelevant during the JE process. She works unsocial and long hours and her work in the less wealthy parts of the community is appreciated by the recipients but this aspect is not valued under JE. She could of course start doing only what she was 'evaluated' to be doing but her pride in her work and unwillingness to let her 'clients' down won't let her. I can see how this is worrying all the affected staff - we are lucky; I also have a job so we can survive but how others who are going to survive where the only incoming wage is being hit so hard who knows. I would suspect that the union will do nothing, support so far seems to have been poor from what I can see. Let's hope the fat cat councillors have egg on their faces when the staff vote with their feet.

Anon Anon wrote:
Anyone hoping for UNISON to come up with anything will be waiting a long time, they started this off. They and the council are an utter disgrace, to do something so life changing to their own members and employees just so some lower paid women get a few more quid, and just before Christmas. Well I hope all their professional staff leave, lets see how they fare!

Unison can be sued over this. They have acted negligently in allowing pay cuts for those people who will lose out.Unison are to blame for this I urge everyone to sue them. Also sue the Council in the County Court for Breach of Contract when they take the money of you.

Joanne wrote:
Winter of Discontent 1978-9: 'We struck because Labour betrayed us' MUCH OF the media thinks there is an easy answer to threatened strikes at the moment. It is to say that they could mean a return to the Winter of Discontent of 1978-9. The argument goes that of course everyone knows the Winter of Discontent was a disastrous period when trade unionists were too strong. New Labour figures argue that the only people who gained from the strikes were the Tories, who won the election in 1979. The lesson, they say, is not to strike and to keep backing the government. The harsh reality of the Winter of Discontent is that workers were forced to fight back against attacks from their own Labour government. Workers stopped being "loyal" to Labour because Labour had not been loyal to them. When Labour was elected in 1974 its manifesto promised, "It is our intention to bring about a fundamental and irreversible shift in the balance of power and wealth in favour of working people and their families." In fact the 1974-9 government imposed the greatest attacks on working class living standards since the hungry years of the 1930s. * Housing-by 1978 fewer council houses were being built than in any year since the Second World War. * Health-25,000 hospital beds went in the first two years of the Labour government. * Education-teachers suffered large scale redundancies for the first time in living memory. * Prices-doubled between February 1974 and December 1978. * Jobs-1,000 a day went in Labour's first three years. * Unemployment was 500,000 in 1974. It reached 1.6 million in 1976. * Wages-a family of four on average earnings was worse off in 1979 than in 1974. Behind those cold statistics lay the shattered lives of millions of working people. It wasn't the Winter of Discontent that turned people against the government. Labour's support collapsed well before anyone went on strike. On 4 November 1976 Labour lost two "rock solid" seats-Walsall North and Workington-and came within a whisker of losing Newcastle Central. In March 1977 Labour lost the Birmingham seat of Stechford on a 17.5 percent swing to the Tories. A month later the unthinkable happened. Labour lost Ashfield to the Tories. It was a mining constituency where Labour had a 23,000 majority. The losses meant Labour, now led by James Callaghan, stayed in office only through a pact with the Liberals, and then through deals with the Welsh and Scottish nationalist parties, and even with the Ulster Unionists. With Labour reeling, the bosses piled on their own pressure. Chancellor Denis Healey cut tax on big business in November 1974, giving big companies an extra £800 million a year profit. But they wanted more, and in the summers of 1975 and 1976 engineered a collapse in the value of the pound by shifting money abroad. The government gave them more. It was never enough for the bosses, and they stepped up their blackmail. CBI director-general Campbell Adamson later recalled: "We certainly discussed an investment strike. We also discussed various things about not paying various taxes, and a list of things which in themselves would not have been legal." The unelected governor of the Bank of England told the government on 30 June 1975 that the pound was plummeting. Labour immediately implemented harsh wage curbs. Pay was held well under the rate of inflation, so living standards fell. At first Labour introduced a £6 limit on wage rises. The £6 was about 10 percent of average wages. Inflation was roaring at 24.2 percent. A second stage of incomes policy in August 1976 brought a 4.5 percent limit on wage rises. Inflation was 16.5 percent. Still British companies caused financial panic until, in September 1976, Denis Healey went cap in hand to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a loan to prop up the value of the pound. The IMF demanded deep cuts in return. But while the bankers and the employers attacked, the union leaders did their best to stop workers' struggles breaking out. TUC leaders had forged an agreement with the Labour government in 1974 called the Social Contract. The union leaders, especially left wing ones like Hugh Scanlon of the engineers' AEU and Jack Jones of the TGWU, often complained about the government's assault on workers' living standards. But they offered no alternative to standing by the Labour government. Jones told his union's 1975 conference, "We simply must help to keep this Labour government in office and stand by it during this terrible economic crisis." In 1976 the Seamen's Union threatened strike action over a long overdue pay award. The general secretary of the TUC, Len Murray, told them, "By god, we'll make sure no union supports you. We'll cripple you." The first ever national firefighters' strike took place the following year. The TUC voted narrowly not to back them, and the government sent in troops. Three major strikes by groups of skilled workers in 1977 collapsed after trade union leaders instructed other workers to cross their picket lines. The Winter of Discontent was the bursting of a dam, an outburst of feeling over five years of betrayal and disappointment. Right wing propaganda of the time (endlessly repeated in Tory broadcasts for decades afterwards) was of picket lines at hospitals and of "the dead kept unburied". But then and now nobody talks about the reasons for the strikes, the harsh cuts and the low pay. As an ambulance worker told Socialist Worker in 1979, when 1.5 million public sector workers were on strike, "We don't mind the patients crapping on us, but we're not putting up with the government doing it." A council worker said, "We had to strike because Labour betrayed us." Throughout 1978 the feeling had grown for a battle over pay. There would have been disputes over pay by electricity supply workers and miners had it not been for the intervention of the union leaders. The union leaders could no longer hold back the flood. Tanker drivers, council workers, water workers and others struck that winter against Labour's 5 percent pay limit. These workers were not crazed militants. The tanker drivers, for example, wanted £65 for a 40-hour week. They were fed up with a life of long hours and low pay. They received such small allowances for overnight stops that they were forced to sleep three to a room in dirty hostels. Such people should have been natural supporters of Labour. But Labour had let them down so sharply that they revolted. Health workers wanted a decent NHS and a proper living for themselves. Labour offered neither. Many of the strikes won. But the experience of Labour in office, and the lack of resistance from the labour movement had taken their toll. None of the left Labour or trade union leaders turned the seething bitterness of working class people into a left wing challenge to Labour. The biggest force to the left of Labour was the Communist Party. It slammed the government's "Social Contrick". But it placed its faith in the left Labour MPs and union leaders, and would not break from them. The far left was far too small to influence masses of workers. So the right, the Tories and, to a lesser extent, the Nazis built from the despair. The confident working class activists who had brought down the Tories five years previously were utterly demoralised. New Labour is again creating enormous bitterness and anger through pro-business policies. The crisis at the heart of New Labour has eroded the party's base of members and activists. We need a wave of strikes again but we also need political generalisation to the left. There is no reason why this should not happen. There is a much broader sense of the failings of privatisation and the market than there was in 1979. There is also the experience of the anti-capitalist movement and the significant minority of people who back the anti-war protests. There are the Socialist Alliance and Scottish Socialist Party. The challenge is to transform the general anger with New Labour on a range of different issues into a united political force with socialist ideas at its heart. © Copyright Socialist Worker (unless otherwise stated). You may republish if you leave this notice in place.

Its all true..This government stinks a dirty stench, this country needs them OUT!

Anyone ever read 'The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist'? Because if you had you would not be surprised by the decisions taken by some autocrats pretending to be democrats. Blackburn Council (s)miles better? Ha!.Best of luck to all those that have had a pay decrease. Hope you find a better paid job or at least make the Rigby's of this world hurt.

J Gorton wrote:

Burnley wrote: Oh come on..... just look at the job ads to see how overpaid council staff are! If they were a private sector company they would have gone bust years ago. Good riddance to those who decide they want to put themselves at the mercy of the private sector and do a proper days work.... slackers

I work for the Council. I went to College for 4 years had to pass very hard exams to get the job I have today. My pay is much lower than in the private sector. I stand to lose £4000. I am now looking for a private sector job. My job is quite specialised let them find someone else to do it... You could not do it you numpty you wouldn\'t know where to start! Dickhead!!

lol... u don't know me, my job or my level of intelligence.

U however seem like a dimwit. If your pay is much lower in the private sector why are you looking for a private sector job? Suddenly realised that your skills aren't really worth all that much in the real world?

What is your highly specialised council job that you had to go to college for 4 years to learn to do? Surely throwing a bit of sawdust over kid puke isn't that tricky? You should be grateful that you got away with it for so long.

What does the burnley numpty do for a living and earn, what would burnly numty think if they lost 30% of their wage!

Doesn't matter what I do for a living. What does matter is that I got a nice pay rise in November and a bonus in December..... I should be on about the same as a council receptionist now (before re-grading of course). Merry Xmas council employees, maybe in the new year you can find a proper job where you actually have to do some work.

Burnley wrote:
Doesn't matter what I do for a living. What does matter is that I got a nice pay rise in November and a bonus in December..... I should be on about the same as a council receptionist now (before re-grading of course). Merry Xmas council employees, maybe in the new year you can find a proper job where you actually have to do some work.

Everybody. Pay no attention to this person. Simply a wind-up merchant like "mad mick" from Blackburn.
The pub is open now Burnley, no need to hang around the street with your can of special brew. Go on, off to the pub with your giro clutched in your hand!!

Not a wind up merchant at all... Simply a tax payer who is glad to see that my contribution is going to be used a little more sensibly in the future. I pay over £700 per month in tax and NI alone. I can't tell you what job I do because then you would know who I am lol.

Oh....and I don't even live in Burnley... or Lancashire for that matter.... and I don't think giro's exist anymore and if they do, I really doubt that pubs would take them as payment. Never been low enough to find out....

DOWN with BwD!!!! BwD are constantly shooting themselves in the foot....After being stung by the Fraud incifdent its disgusting how a pay cut is on the horizon for everyone who was involved for sorting the whole mess out! It is inevitable that there will be more fraudulent activities as no is going to double/triple check all the paperwork filtering through the system! So, who's done the crime and who is going to pay the time! Nevertheless its time to move out and on and let the unprofessionals take over!

Burnley wrote:
Not a wind up merchant at all... Simply a tax payer who is glad to see that my contribution is going to be used a little more sensibly in the future. I pay over £700 per month in tax and NI alone. I can't tell you what job I do because then you would know who I am lol. Oh....and I don't even live in Burnley... or Lancashire for that matter.... and I don't think giro's exist anymore and if they do, I really doubt that pubs would take them as payment. Never been low enough to find out....

so... £700 in tax and NI... puts you around the £30k pay bracket. In what universe do Council Receptionists get that level of pay? Grow up and try knowing what you are talking about before you comment.

Gerri wrote:

Burnley wrote: Not a wind up merchant at all... Simply a tax payer who is glad to see that my contribution is going to be used a little more sensibly in the future. I pay over £700 per month in tax and NI alone. I can't tell you what job I do because then you would know who I am lol. Oh....and I don't even live in Burnley... or Lancashire for that matter.... and I don't think giro's exist anymore and if they do, I really doubt that pubs would take them as payment. Never been low enough to find out....

so... £700 in tax and NI... puts you around the £30k pay bracket. In what universe do Council Receptionists get that level of pay? Grow up and try knowing what you are talking about before you comment.

Hi. I'm sarcasm Have we met?

I work for Blackburn Council and am also Blackburn resident. Two years ago I was on the same salary as my counterparts at two neighbouring Councils who do an identical job. All 3 Borough’s scored similar points in Job Evaluation, however the other two moved up a grade and we moved down a grade leaving a £6K salary gap.
When I queried the above, I was advised that after points scoring each Council sets the grades dependant on its budget. (How is this Job Evaluation?!!)

Consider this:
In November 2007 the Unions advised us they intended to pull out of the process. They stated BWDBC had not completed the process by April 2007 as originally projected, therefore they intended to reduce the scales to prevent claims for back pay by those who had moved up. (If true, it means each member of staff has reduced a grade to cover the threat of compensation due to the Council’s incompetence at not getting the process complete on time!!)

In the meantime, we were advised of a £10K bonus awarded to Director’s (who incidentally were not part of the original Job Evaluation process). When we queried this we received the response “I can tell you from now, no Director’s will receive any bonuses / rewards”. Politician’s answer I feel, as the said person failed to confirm no awards had already been given!!

I have never seen so many Directors within an organisation. In the last ten years, the number of Director’s at BWDBC must have trebled while sections seem to get progressively smaller?

I feel sad to say that BWDBC is probably the most corrupt organisation I have ever worked for (private or public sector). The place is run by Directors only interested in personal gain and Councillor’s only interested in power. I have already seen the Council pick up the pieces from Directors who left shortly after introducing a “Big Idea” only for it to fall apart. In 5 years most of the current Directors will be at other Council’s with no after thought about the mess they have created.

The staff morale is as low as I have ever seen anywhere and I intend to leave in the New Year. Thanks for spending thousands of pounds on my training but I think it will be more appreciated elsewhere!!

After having had time to ponder my thoughts from yesterday, I feel it is appropriate to retract paragraph 5 of my comments.

Although I am sceptical about the way the Council is run, I have no reason to suggest corruption (The Waghat incident apart).

These pay reviews are based on the subjective process of job evaluation. This process, albeit with a significant margin of error, produces scores for jobs according to the duties and responsibilities. A full explanation of the process may be found in the Single Status feature of the Labouruniondigest website. A 'pay line' is then drawn to translate the scores into grades. The grades are only a few points apart in scores of hundreds, so this part of the process is also something of a lottery.

The 'pay line' is unique to the council concerned and how it is drawn determines the extent and magnitude of the downgradings. It would be quite possible for Blackburn to draw a 'pay line' that downgrades far fewer jobs by fewer grades. Despite the Equal Pay Act not requiring equal pay to be achieved by cutting pay, what the council is doing is making 24% of its workforce pay the cost of putting right 30 years of equal pay shortcomings that it, not these workers, is responsible for. Other councils have done the same, but 24% of jobs downgraded with pay cuts of up to £10k and more puts Blackburn near the top of the 'league of shame'.

Many of the jobs that Blackburn proposes to downgrade seem to be office jobs, many of which will be unisex. The pay of jobs carried out by both men and women can never be discriminatory because, even if somebody is doing similar work for less pay, the reason for the difference will not be gender. There is no equal pay excuse for downgrading such jobs. The 'pay line' could have been drawn to minimise the impact on such jobs.

I work in education and like many other council employees, myself and other members of staff are set to loose upwards of £3000, how can anyone suffer such a financial loss? It is appaulling the way we are being treated, if it were the directors loosing such substantial amounts of money the scheme would not go ahead I am sure. I have worked in my present job for a number of years and have been qualified for 19 years, although that seems to count for nothing. I love my job and truely believe in what I do but I am now, because of personal circumstances, having to re-think my present position. What this authority are doing is morally wrong, these are people's lives they are messing up, not just numbers on a bit of paper.

I hope you are not an English teacher J. Penkethman.

*Lose not loose.
*Losing not loosing
*Appalling not appaulling
*Truly not truely.

Sorry to flag them up but you did say you were a teacher.

Nope.... he/she said "I work in education"

J E isacson's post referring to the laboutuniondigest website is an interesting one. This website and others now springing up on the net and must be recommended reading for anyone directly involved or otherwise concerned with this startingly immoral, unethical and cruel 'process.'

It begs the question whether any other Local Authority thus far has hit its own emplyees uneccesarily hard as Blackburn with Darwen BC. Both in terms of the staggering financial amounts so many members of staff are set to lose, and the dreadful level of Payment Protection offered (under threat of dismissal for those who do not wish to comply or simply cannot afford to bear the financial burden amongst their families.)

Other LA's are devastated at the possibility of THREE YEARS guaranteed Payment Protection. If only!

Why are Blackburn Council workers so hard hit with this 'double whammy' in comparison with the rest of the country?

And please can the Union, who have been so silent so far in all of this, read the labouruniondigest site and do something for your distressed and soon to be homeless members.

1320 council workers have been told that they are to lose monies; in most case this amounts to thousands of pounds. Is this not a form of constructive dismissal?

Has with most jobs. People wishing to apply for a advertise post at the advertised salary, had to compete for the post against other applicants with the requested relevant job experience and qualifications. The job was open to both the private and public sectors. The post was offered to be best applicant be they from public or private sector. My understanding is that this was a simple contract of offer and acceptance. The original offer is now being changed. We will be asked to sign that we accept the new agreement if we fail to sign are contracts will be with drawn. I ask again. Is this not a form of constructive dismissal?

There is no point in consulting unison - I tried. Unison is complacent in the knowledge that with the majority winning of staff getting an increase in monies and other being unaffected (so highly not want to rock the boat). Unison knows that a vote to the membership to accept JE is stacked in favour of acceptance.

What ever happened to a fair representation for all?

I too have been badly affected by job evaluation and personally wouldn't get out of bed for what they will be offering in 15 months time. The best that anyone can do is take their skills and services elsewhere. We have 15 months to do something about it, a blessing as far as I'm concerned. So what are you waiting for?

I have just had this email from UNISON.

"Dear Colleagues,

Council Notification
All members of staff will soon be receiving a letter from the Council regarding their new pay, terms and conditions following Job Evaluation. It is our understanding that the Council will be requiring staff to respond in writing to this letter by the return of a tear off slip no later than 31st January 2008.

This letter from the Council is an invitation by the Council, as your employer, for you, as employee, to individually indicate your acceptance or rejection of the proposed amendment to your own contract, and does not form any part of the UNISON postal ballot which will be forthcoming."

Does this mean I have until the end of the month to accept or lose my job? My appeal hasnt even sorted out yet!

onlooker wrote:
I have read most of these posts with interest and have a couple of observations. 1. have the people whose wages been cut or increased been given about 15 months notice about it? if so, this is far more than most people in the private sector would get if the company they worked for faced difficulties. Like any other worker they have the right to seek employment elsewhere. Why do these people who work for the public sector believe they should be treated any differently than a private sector worker. 2. Graham Burgess holding his position of Chief Exec, carries exceptional responsibility and in the private sector in a company employing over 5000 people which is approximately the number of people he is responsible for toghether with the budgets that he is responsible for handling would attract a much higher salary that the 160k that he gets now. 3. Not sure if this is correct but the software that BWDBC used to address the salary issue I believe was weighted towards people who where either responsible for large budgets or health workers, perhaps someone could confirm if this is true.

The comment for the onlooker can only be replied to as a person talking from their hat. As a taxpayer in Blackburn I find it very offensive to be told that my taxes are being used to subsodise a salary of 160k for no more than a burocratic paper shuffler and you should also bare in mind that the 160k will be a minor percentage of the actual overall package that Graham Burgess receives

Don't know what you are all complaining about. I am down to have my salary reduced by 13k and my parking increased by 1k. I stand to lose my house, my car and will have to cancel my wedding. Thank you very much Blackburn with Darwen and a Happy New Year to you too!

Burnley wrote:

Gerri wrote:

Burnley wrote: Not a wind up merchant at all... Simply a tax payer who is glad to see that my contribution is going to be used a little more sensibly in the future. I pay over £700 per month in tax and NI alone. I can\'t tell you what job I do because then you would know who I am lol. Oh....and I don\'t even live in Burnley... or Lancashire for that matter.... and I don\'t think giro\'s exist anymore and if they do, I really doubt that pubs would take them as payment. Never been low enough to find out....

so... £700 in tax and NI... puts you around the £30k pay bracket. In what universe do Council Receptionists get that level of pay? Grow up and try knowing what you are talking about before you comment.

Hi. I\'m sarcasm Have we met?

Nice to meet you - Has anyone ever told you how closely you resemble Pig Ignorance?