NJC pay ballot – do you know about the NI rise?

1% x 2? Here are 1,2, 3 reasons why you should REJECT it

  1. Members in the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) and other occupational pension schemes will start paying 1.4% extra National Insurance contributions from 1st April. That means most of our members will be 0.4% worse off for the next two years with this pay offer – even before inflation is taken into account!
  2. It’s an unfair offer. 1% for 2 more years is peanuts! Staff on lower grades get slightly more, but this is only to keep them up to speed with the new, mandatory National Living Wage which comes into force from April. RPI inflation currently stands at 1% but it is predicted to rise to as much as 3% in 2017 and 3.3% in 2018. So the value of your pay in real terms will decline even further.
  3. These are not West Sussex negotiations. They are national negotiations of National Joint Committee pay. If a better settlement requires central government to intervene in order to fund it, that would be the outcome. Local government pay has been effectively set by George Osborne’s budget pronouncements (which was where 1% over 2 years has come from). If we can get better, he will have to rethink this unfair cap. Central government can always find more funding – austerity is a political choice.

When will ‘pay restraint’ end? It will only end when staff on NJC payscales say that enough is enough and stand together for a decent pay rise. Only we have the power to change this. If we do nothing, you can expect a similar, non-existent pay rise in 2018/19 and beyond.

Now is the time to give your union a mandate for work-to-rule action, selective strike action, and all out strike action.

Watch out for the ballot email coming your way this week. Vote, encourage your colleagues to vote, and encourage non-members to join. If you have not registered an email address with us, contact us urgently.