Update from the LGA:
UNISON has announced the outcome of its recent national ballot for industrial action. The Trade Union Act 2016 requires that for any strike action to be lawful, at least 50 per cent of the members entitled to cast a vote must do so.
The result of the ballot (England and Wales only. Northern Ireland ballot closes on 10 Feb) is as follows:
Voted ‘yes’ to strike action = 70.2 per cent
Voted ‘no’ to strike action = 29.8 per cent
Turnout = 14.5%
As the turnout has clearly failed to reach the 50 per cent threshold, UNISON cannot now proceed with industrial action related to the 2021 NJC pay offer. UNISON will be writing to individual employers to inform them of the result in their own organisation. UNISON’s national local government committee will be meeting next Tue 18 Jan to discuss next steps.
GMB’s national local government committee will be meeting in the next couple of weeks to discuss its next steps in light of the result of its consultative ballot (which is unknown to us) that closed on 13 December.
Unite is currently in the process of issuing strike ballot notices to employers and will begin balloting its members in the next week or so. Unlike UNISON, which conducted an aggregated ballot (meaning it required at least 50 per cent of its national membership to cast a vote), Unite’s results will be collated on a disaggregated basis, which means that strike action could be taken at each individual council / school etc where a turn-out of at least 50 per cent is secured (if members vote in favour of strike action). Its ballot also covers employees covered by the JNC for local authority Craftworkers and the JNC for Youth & Community Workers. The ballot will close towards the end of February.
Chief Executives and Chief Officers have been offered a full and final offer of 1.5 per cent (covering the period 1 April 2021 – 31 March 2022), which the Staff Sides of both groups have rejected. We await further announcements from them about next steps.