Huntingdonshire District Council is preparing for further planned industrial action by some of the council's staff employed at Pathfinder House.
The council was informed this week that members of the UNISON union intend to undertake industrial action from Tuesday 29 August to Friday 1 September 2023. This action has been called by UNISON for their members employed by the council who work at the council’s Pathfinder House headquarters. We are currently assessing what impact there will be on our services.
This comes after the recent announcement of intended industrial action from Monday 21 August to Friday 25 August at the council’s Eastfield House site, which hosts the council's waste collection services. It is currently estimated that the impact of that first action strike will be limited to interruption to the green bin collection service. Talks continue to resolve the dispute, but contingency planning is well underway to limit the impact on residents if strike action does go ahead.
Through both periods of industrial action all efforts will be made to limit the impact on residents and communicate these to residents. Service updates will be available on our website.
The planned action follows unsuccessful annual pay discussions with UNISON. Council staff have received a 4% pay award for this financial year along with a further £1,000 one-off award to all contracted staff in March.
The council had offered a further payment to be made in December which would result in all contracted staff receiving at least the Real Living Wage in 2023/24. This addressed one of UNISON's core requests, yet it has been rejected.
Cllr Martin Hassall, Executive Councillor for Corporate and Shared Services, said: "We are disappointed to hear of this further strike action by UNISON, but talks are ongoing, and we very much hope that industrial action can be avoided or resolved quickly.
"We apologise for the inconvenience that this will cause people, but contingency planning is underway, and arrangements are in place to ensure we offer our important frontline services to residents as best as we can on the affected days.
"Some services may have to be prioritised at the expense of others and we would ask for the public's patience.
"If there are any changes to services, then we will communicate these via our website and social media."