Greenwich Council housing workers 'pause' strike action

The strike action, initially planned for today and tomorrow (July 1 and 2) is in response to the council's plans to cut wages by up to 30 per cent over four years, following a highly contentious "benchmarking exercise".

Greenwich Council had also indicated it was considering the controversial "fire and rehire" practice - according to Unite - to dismiss the workers and then lower their pay.

This dispute resulted in strike action in both May and June, with the council having to run a reduced housing repairs service on June 12 due to the walk out.

However, since then the council has not continued its attempts to cut pay or made any action to "fire and rehire" the workforce, prompting the workers to pause their industrial action.

An opportunity towards negotiation to end the dispute is now possible.

READ MORE: Greenwich Council housing workers to strike again over pay

Unite regional officer Mary Summers said that the strikes had been "paused to allow Greenwich council the opportunity to confirm that it will not use the disgraceful practice of fire and rehire on its own workers".

Ms Summers added: "If Greenwich fails to confirm it supports Labour’s manifesto commitment to ban fire and rehire and continues with plans to cut workers' pay, then the strikes scheduled for later in July will go ahead as planned."

A second set of strikes planned for July 15 and 16 will still take place if the demands are not met.

Following the pause in strike action, a council spokesperson said: "We welcomed the suspension of strike action as no-one was benefitting from these strikes and staff were losing money.

"Having already increased our offer on several occasions - including a commitment to a phased approach - we would welcome a return to reasonable discussions as we cannot continue the current position where we are paying far and above industry average, in some cases upwards of £100,000."