One rule for binmen, another for low paid female carers...
Covering home visits from 7am to 10pm had proved difficult, with lots of downtime in between so bosses decided that all 283 staff should be part time – currently only 40 per cent are. It means approximately 200 workers, mostly low paid women, could lose hours and pay (unless they move to another part of the social care service). Their union Unison says this will also impact on benefits like tax credits hitting them further in the pocket.
So they are embarking on 14 days of strike action over the next few weeks.
Last year a few hundred binmen brought the city to a standstill and toppled a council leader during their successful industrial action which followed the threat to cut responsibility and pay for many.
It is unlikely these social care workers will be able to have the same impact, their work is carried out away from the public eye and presumably shifts will be filled with agency carers. The carers have been in dispute with the city council since late last year.
As one union member has pointed out, the council can do a deal for the binmen, so why can't they do one for a group of low paid women?
AS someone who covered the campaign to save Sutton Coldfield Town Hall from closure or sale in the mid-1990s it is fantastic to see that after years of under-investment a rescue plan now appears to be in place.
Like many other listed buildings in this city, such as Highbury Hall and the Moseley Road Baths, it has been neglected by the city council over many years, leaving it with huge repair and renovation bills.
And like those buildings the answer has been to hand them over to a local charitable trust which unlike the city council would not be liable for business rates and be able to lever in different sources of funding. Thanks to its focus, the fledgling trust has already improved use of the town hall with 11 extra wedding bookings and more theatre productions.
It is a fantastic facility and is better off being run by people who care, rather than being ignored as it has been.
IN 2009 the then council cabinet member for housing, John Lines, unveiled the plan to relaunch council house building in Birmingham.
For the first time in a generation the council became directly involved in bricks and mortar – at a time when the private construction industry was in a slump. The aim was to build 500 homes a year.
Almost a decade later the Birmingham Municipal Housing Trust completed its 3,000th house.
It is only just now reaching that rate of construction with current cabinet member Sharon Thompson confirming plans to complete 2,000 homes over the next four years.
But given the desperate need for new housing and the growing length of the council waiting list, shouldn't they be aiming for many more?
THE city council is up to its old tricks again, bewildering punters with its prying questions about their sexual orientation.
Five years ago a survey on the roll-out of wheelie bins asked residents if they were gay, straight or bisexual – or prefer not to say.
Now those commuters commenting on the plans for a clean air zone are getting the same quiz.
It is part of the standard city's equalities monitoring questions alongside religion, ethnic background and age. But one wonders if there is any point to this – except to leave people confused.