Councillors from
three parties on resources committee vote not even to consider increasing
wage to liveable level as committee chair talks over councillor trying to
argue for it
Labour, Tory and LibDem councillors have voted not even to consider the issue of
paying the Real Living Wage to all workers delivering Wirral Council
services. Twenty-three local authorities in England pay the 'RLW' to
contractors and staff working for outsourced providers too.
 | | A living wage should not be controversial in the 6th richest nation in the world |
But in Wirral borough on Merseyside, two years after all parties agreed to
pay the Real Living Wage, more than half of care home providers in the
borough don’t pass on the wage to workers - and video of a council
committee session show a Green member of the committee, former Labour
councillor Jo Bird, being talked over and condescended to by the Labour
council leader as she tried to raise the issue for the sake of low-paid
staff. The same individual had given the first opportunities to speak to
the Tory
group leader and Wirral Council's chief executive, who is paid around
£180,000 a year:
The Real Living Wage of £9.90 per hour is not paid to all
workers delivering council services in Wirral, exacerbating poverty at the
best of times and causing huge damage to families and communities in the
midst of a corporate greed-driven 'cost of living crisis'.
At Wirral's Policy and Resources Committee on yesterday,
Cllr Bird proposed that a further report be submitted to the Policy &
Resources committee on the state of affairs regarding the Real Living Wage
being paid to all workers delivering council services, not just those
employed directly by the council. In response, several senior Wirral
councillors spent a large part of the meeting talking against such a
report.
Cllr Pat Cleary, leader of Wirral Greens and also on the
committee, told other committee members:
All that we are asking for, is the report that we were
promised, that would detail what the cost to the authority would be, if we
were to pay the Real Living Wage to everybody who is employed delivering
council services. Its perfectly reasonable.
Please treat the Real Living Wage with the respect it
deserves. Its an important issue, which is important to highlight.
Cleary also took the council leader to task for the tone
used against Bird for making 'a perfectly reasonable request' and the
double-standard applied when other councillors have actively derailed
meetings without receiving anything like the same kind of treatment. The
derision shown to Cllr Bird - the borough's only Jewish councillor -
continues the shameful treatment meted out to her locally by the
Labour party, while the national party expelled her as part of its ongoing purge of left-wing Jews.
All Labour, Conservative and LibDem
councillors present voted against the amendment for a Real Living Wage
report, leaving only Wirral Green councillors apparently concerned enough
about the poverty facing many involved in providing the council's services
to actually want to address the issue.
The toxicity of the Labour right at local government level
has long brought disrepute to the party. That has not changed, except that
the same arrogance, callousness and condescension is now the norm at
national level since Keir Starmer became what currently passes for the
party's leader.
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