There will be a demonstration outside HalifaxTown Hall at 5.15pm, before the Budget Council Meeting at 6.00pm on Monday 24th February.

Calderdale Unison is asking all Unions that are members of Calderdale Trades Council to encourage their members to attend the demonstration. Non-union members are also welcome.

The Conservatives and Lib Dems have formed an alliance to promote their own budget proposals at Monday’s Calderdale Council Budget meeting. The meeting will decide the Council Budget for 2014-15.

The ConDem proposals are downloadable here.

Edward Ashman, Calderdale Unison Branch Secretary, said:

“The Conservatives and LibDems are proposing to end what they describe as the ‘trade union subsidy’. We think they mean the facility time agreement with Unison. They aim to implement this saving from 1st April, which may mean that we will not have a Local Government Branch to be able to support Unison members.

They are proposing to achieve a saving of £200k in 2014/15 rising to £400k in subsequent years by not paying sick pay for the first three days of any absence. The figures would suggest that they want to achieve this for implementation by October 2014.

There are also suggestions that there may be further redundancies, particularly in neighbourhood management.”