COUNCIL home maintenance workers will be balloted for strikes after national employers refused to negotiate on pay and conditions, Unite said today.

More than a thousand local authority craftworkers on the red book agreement will be balloted over an “unsatisfactory” below-RPI offer of 3.2 per cent pay offer for 2025.

The first councils to be affected are Durham, Leeds, Stoke, Dudley, Southwark, Newham and Bristol. 

The Local Government Association (LGA), which handles local council workers’ pay, put forward a full and final offer without any negotiations, said the union.

It also removed apprentices from the national agreement and put a new entrant on the same pay scale as a qualified craft operative.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “The way the LGA has conducted pay negotiations has been nothing short of a disgrace.”

She accused the LGA of “playing politics with [the workers’] livelihoods.”

The LGA was contacted for comment.