BIRMINGHAM COUNCIL workers must not “pay the price for a crisis they didn’t create,” Unite said after councillors signed off what is thought to be the biggest budget cut in local authority history.
Europe’s largest local authority approved a devastating wave of cuts to services ahead of a 21 per cent rise in council tax over two years on Tuesday night.
Last September, it declared itself effectively bankrupt and looks to make £300 million in savings after equal pay claims of up to £760m and an £80m overspend on an under-fire IT system combine with years of deep cuts to central government’s funding for councils.
Unite national officer for local authorities Clare Keogh said: “These cuts are devastating for Birmingham council’s workers and the entire city.
“Vital public services are on the brink of being all but destroyed.
“This is the culmination of years and years of brutal budget reductions by central government.
“Birmingham council’s workers, who have already suffered well over a decade of falling wages and whose efforts have ensured increasingly depleted services functioned, must not pay the price for a crisis they didn’t create.
“Unite will do everything in its power, politically and industrially, to ensure they don’t.”
GMB organiser Alice Reynolds said: “These cuts will draw into the question the council’s ability to deliver even basic services.
“Workers and local people, especially the most vulnerable and lowest paid, are yet again being asked to pay the price for decades of austerity and financial mismanagement.
“Council bosses have outlined drastic cuts to spending; yet not one women worker has been repaid the wages that have been stolen from them.
“GMB members have been balloted and an overwhelming 87 per cent backed strike action; we will fight for every single worker and every single job.”
The council’s vote came hours before Chancellor Jeremy Hunt was expected to ask councils to reduce spending on diversity schemes and consultants in his budget.
About 200 protesters demonstrated against the proposals as the budget meeting took place at Council House.
Nearly one in five council leaders in England have said they are likely to declare bankruptcy in the next 15 months.
Councils will have seen a 27 per cent fall in spending power on local services in the 2024-25 financial year since 2010, according to the Local Government Association.
The meeting in Birmingham came a day after councillors in Nottingham passed a range of swingeing budget cuts.
