THOUSANDS of council workers may be asked to take a pay cut in order to save their jobs.

Town hall bosses have to chop between £10-12 million from next year's budget, and, as previously reported in the Bury Times, staff terms and conditions will be on the agenda.

Council leader John Byrne said he was looking at Tameside, where staff agreed to work two or three days a year without pay.

Extra local conditions, which are on top of nationally-agreed pay, will also be looked at.

"The kind of savings we are discussing inevitably mean jobs," he said.

"For several years, we've been cutting staff through voluntary redundancy, early retirement and not filling vacancies. But now there are less people who are going to leave early."

He hoped to persuade the unions that small cuts would mean less redundancies, but said such plans would not be forced through without their consent.

A consultation list of potential cuts will be distributed within the next month.

Phil Stansfield, branch secretary of Unison, said he would personally be against such plans, but the union's executive would consider them when they were officially published.

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