Rejoice! It has come to pass! Two thirds of Bristol’s councillors have voted to RAISE the council’s senior bosses’ salaries by up to 20 PER CENT. Just as we revealed they were conspiring to do in the last issue of The BRISTOLIAN.
An elite group of bosses – already in THE TOP ONE PER CENT OF EARNERS in the city – can now look forward to enhanced pay packets from this month. The council’s three strategic directors will now be struggling along on £136K A YEAR while 29 service directors can look forward to pay packets of up to £110K A YEAR. Up from £90k!
Meanwhile councillors made NO PAY OFFER whatsoever to the rest of their long-suffering, low paid staff whose salaries have STAGNATED for at least eight years. The little people who do all the work can fuck off as far as Bristol City Councillors are concerned.
Many from the establishment political parties – LABOUR, TORIES and GREENS – with the exception of a few maverick Lib Dems, supported this insane salary rise for bosses. Delivered under the guise of a pay policy claiming to REDUCE INEQUALITY between the lowest paid and the highest paid at the council by, er … Increasing the wages of the best paid!
While you expect bent Tories to stuff the pockets of the wealthy with public money, it’s extraordinary that the so-called progressives of the Labour and Green parties back these pay rises for the ONE PER CENT OF HIGHEST EARNERS. Especially when both parties are pretending – during the mayoral elections at least – that they are going to tackle inequality in Bristol.
Both parties also happily supported the unproven claim by Mayor Toryboy that these fat cat salaries have to be increased to attract “THE BEST TALENT“. Because obviously you need “talent” to shuffle paper, sit in meetings and fail to deliver a transport plan for your key capital project don’t you? It also takes “talent”, presumably, to keep your work and its finances TOP SECRET at all costs from the public you serve.
In reality, there’s ZERO EVIDENCE to show higher salaries to bosses improves anything at all. It’s as big an economic myth as the Tories’ notorious “TRICKLE DOWN THEORY“, which claims making the rich richer will make poor people wealthier.
Even the trade unions seem to be in on this CRUDE SCAM to benefit the bosses and not the workers. We’ve seen no public objection from the three main unions at the council – Unison, Unite and the GMB – to this scandalous pay rise for the rich or any attack on the LIES AND DISTORTIONS used to implement it.
Perhaps it’s time for workers at the council to organise themselves?