Unions suspend next week’s public sector strikes

A local government and school support workers strike planned for next week has been called off.

Unison, GMB and Unite, which represent 1.5m workers, said the strikes planned for Tuesday October 14 would be suspended while they consult their members on new proposals from the Local Government Association.

Brian Strutton, GMB national secretary for public services, said: “It has proved extremely difficult to persuade the local government employers to agree new pay proposals for us to consult our members on. But now we have an agreed set of new proposals which we will consult on and while doing that GMB is suspending the strike planned for October 14. We will issue more details about the consultation shortly.”

A spokesman for GMB said the union wanted to strengthen its collective bargaining ability.

He said workers covered by the National Joint Council for Local Government had the lowest pay in the public sector and had suffered significant attacks on their working condition in recent years.