Portsmouth councillors lobby for £500 'coronavirus bonus' for council workers
LABOUR councillors in the city are looking to lobby the government for £500 ‘coronavirus bonuses’ for council staff who worked amid the pandemic.
Councillors Cal Corkery and Tom Coles are calling on Portsmouth City Council to back calls for the cash, as well as a wage increase for agency staff, to ‘show gratitude’ to the people ‘we went out and clapped for on Thursday nights’.
Calls for the £500 bonus, which has separately been awarded to care home workers in Wales, were initially backed by the Local Government Association (LGA) with plans to ask government for more cash. However, the LGA then U-turned on this.
During a full council meeting next week Cllr Corkery will ask members to ask the LGA to fight for the bonus cash. He said: ‘A lot of council staff have been at the front line of providing services through lockdown.
‘These are some of the people we went out and clapped for on Thursday nights. Now it's time to show our gratitude in a substantiated way.’
Cllr Corkery is also asking the council to adopt the real living wage of £9.30 an hour for staff employed through agencies – not just its in-house workers which are already on that wage.
He added: ‘A lot of home care staff used by the council are not directly employed by the council.
‘They are often the worst paid and worst treated jobs there are – on minimum wage with no sick pay. We don't think the council can really say it is a living wage council unless they are also paid it.’
Unions had branded the decision by the LGA not to fight for the £500 bonus as ‘a slap in the face’.
It comes as talks between unions and councils across the country over a 10 per cent pay increase for staff have appeared to reach a stalemate, with local authorities offering a 2.75 per cent rise.
Portsmouth City Council leader, Cllr Gerald Vernon-Jackson, previously said a 10 per cent increase would be ‘completely unaffordable’.
The motion is due to be discussed during a virtual full council meeting on Tuesday, July 21.
The Local Government Association was approached for comment.