London Living Wage Week: Barnet UNISON message to employers is “Pay Up Now!”
London Living Wage Week: Barnet UNISON message to employers is:
“Pay Up Now!”
This week is London Living Wage for more details of the campaign please go to https://www.livingwage.org.uk/living-wage-week
As soon as Barnet UNISON heard the new rate had changed from £11.95 to £13.15 an hour we contacted the Leader of Barnet Council, Chief Executive of Barnet Council and Chief Executive of The Barnet Group to ask what they are doing to ensure that all contractors adopt the new pay rate.
Last week we heard that the Chief Executive of The Barnet Group has sent a message to staff stating:
“We have made a commitment to pay the London living wage if we can afford to, to comply with the Living Wage Foundation accreditation it needs to be implemented by 1st May 2024.”
We already know from a survey of our members that pay is the one biggest issues. We are in the worst Cost Of Living Crisis in 76 years, things are not getting better, they are getting worse.
Barnet UNISON will shortly be conducting a mass consultation pay ballot with our members which will ask two questions.
1. Do you think you should wait until 1 May 2024, or should you be given the new pay rate now?
2. If you want the pay now and management refuse to pay, are you prepared to take strike action? Yes or No?
The choice of what we do next will be from our members. We are a branch that does support its members as we saw last year with the Barnet Ten strikes and now, we have social workers on strike about pay.
Whatever happens, you the members will decide what we do next.
We will be organising meetings in workplaces and a big online meeting to discuss this issue.
If you want to book a meeting on pay or would like more information about the mass consultation pay ballot email us at contactus@barnetunison.org.uk