UNISON consulting members on possible strike ballot over hundreds of planned redundancies at Kirklees Council

UNISON, which represents 4,500 Kirklees Council workers, is currently gauging whether or not its members want to vote in a strike ballot.

A strike ballot would ask members to vote on taking industrial action. If workers decide they would like a ballot to be held and a majority vote is reached, this could see a strike that impacts many of the council’s departments.

The union has already argued that Kirklees Council staff should not pay the price for the council’s financial difficulties and has urged the local authority to re-think its plans to make 250 members of its workforce redundant.

These redundancies will be made between October and March but the union says this is just “phase one” and that the council is still looking to lose 750 members of staff.

Seven hundred and fifty was the original figure for redundancies that was given to council staff in an email from chief executive Jacqui Gedman last month.

The email broke the news of the redundancies and set out the dire state of the council’s finances.

Kirklees Council is currently projecting a £20.3m overspend on its £380m budget for this financial year.

A saving of £47m needs to be made to balance the books and 750 redundancies were announced as one of the measures to save the council some cash and to help it to avoid a Section 114 notice or effectively declaring that it is bankrupt.

Other measures include putting a stop to all non-essential spending, freezing recruitment and upping discretionary fees.

UNISON Yorkshire and Humberside regional organiser Robin Symonds said: “Kirklees UNISON is making preparations to ballot members at Kirklees Council for strike action over the 250 proposed redundancies.

“We are currently running a consultative ballot to gauge the strength of feeling amongst members before we proceed to a formal ballot in line with branch policy.

"The early response has been encouraging with over four hundred votes cast in the first morning alone.

“The proposed job cuts will decimate local services and the council is yet to tell us which services will be affected or which jobs will be cut.

"They have ruled out voluntary redundancies and we are still waiting to find out what policies they intend to follow.

“The proposed redundancies are phase one of 750 redundancies that the council is planning.

"This is a very uncertain time for workers who deliver public services, and those who rely on them.

"We are on a collision course as we prepare to fight the cuts.”