Carers celebrate pay cut U-turn (From Witney Gazette)

Carers celebrate pay cut U-turn

CARE workers are celebrating after Oxfordshire County Council dropped its controversial plan to cut their weekend pay.

The authority bowed to pressure from the 500 workers and their trade union Unison - and admitted the plans to reduce their Sunday pay from double time to time-and-a-half had been ill-conceived.

The care assistants, who each earn £7.78 an hour, were upset the Tory-controlled council was considering cutting their pay at a time when chief executive Joanna Simons and her six directors had been awarded ten per cent pay increases.

Her pay rise of £15,000 was almost as much as a care worker earns in a year.

A letter will be dispatched to all 500 care workers later today in which County Hall will apologise for the distress it has caused.

Care workers will be told: "We have agreed we will not be progressing further with this proposal. We are very sorry for the distress that has been caused during this consultation period".

Oxfordshire Unison branch secretary Mark Fysh said: "We have won on this - victory is ours, there is absolutely no doubt."

A series of revised working practices has also been agreed.

Council spokesman Barbara McSweeney said the authority had no further comment to make on the dispute.