Caerphilly council staff to walk out over ‘mammoth’ pay rises for bosses (From South Wales Argus)

Caerphilly council staff to walk out over ‘mammoth’ pay rises for bosses

12:00pm Friday 14th December 2012 in News

PAY DEAL: Chief executive Anthony O’Sullivan, awarded a big pay rise

CAERPHILLY council staff have decided to walk out on Monday lunchtime in protest at ‘mammoth’ pay rises set to be given out to 20 of the top paid executives.

Unison’s Caerphilly County Branch held an emergency branch executive meeting on Wednesday to decide on a response to the council’s decision to raise the chief executive’s and executive officers’ pay by up to 20 per cent with chief executive Anthony O’Sullivan getting a £27,000 rise on top of his £120,000 salary.

Four of the council’s high earners are set to get fivefigure increases.

After the meeting, Gary Enright, Unison Caerphilly branch secretary, said: “Our members are understandably extremely angry about the chief executive’s mammoth pay rise and are not prepared to simply accept the situation.

“It is grossly unfair and insulting to Caerphilly council workers. Following discussions with our members throughout the council, Unison has decided to lead a lunchtime walk out this Monday.

“We will be calling on all of our members to utilise their lunch break to participate in the walk out to demonstrate their anger and strength of feeling on this matter.”

Caerphilly Plaid Cymru also wants a special council meeting called to discuss the pay hike.

Cllr Colin Mann, leader of the opposition Plaid group, said: “The group executive met yesterday evening and agreed to recommend to the group that we should seek a special meeting of the authority.

“We expect to get that authority from the group on Monday evening.

“The rises are more than most of our employees earn in a year and this meeting will give all councillors an opportunity to have their say on this pay deal, which has caused so much outrage among employees and the public.”

As required under the Localism Act 2011, a full council meeting was held on June 26 to consider the council’s pay policy.

At that meeting a politically- balanced remuneration committee was established to reviewpay arrangements for senior staff across the authority.

A Caerphilly council spokesman said the decision was made by a crossparty committee on September 5, and in the interests of transparency, the minutes of the meeting were presented at the earliest opportunity to all members at the full council meeting on the October 9.

The minutes were accepted and no issues or concerns were raised by members at the time.