Gollop to lead pay talks with public sector workers
Deputy John Gollop will lead the States into the next round of pay negotiations with thousands of public sector employees.
The new Policy & Resources Committee said yesterday that it had appointed Deputy Gollop to succeed Deputy David Mahoney as its lead on employment matters.
It has given him a brief to settle a pay deal with all employee groups before the end of this year in the hope of avoiding the protracted disputes and strike threats which hit the previous round of negotiations earlier in the States term.
‘The committee will be considering its pay policy later in the year with a view to finalising negotiations before the start of 2025,’ said a P&R spokesman.
About 5,000 States employees have just entered the final year of a three-year pay deal which involved increases of 5% plus £500 in 2022, 7% in 2023, and 5.8% at the start of this year, which was 1% below the annual rate of inflation.
The new P&R, which was elected last month, said it had not yet had time to agree how it would approach this year’s pay talks or whether it would try to strike another multi-year deal ahead of the next general election in June 2025.
‘It is too soon to be able to give any indication of what its intentions are in respect of future pay awards as it will need to take a range of factors into consideration before determining what offers it intends to make,’ it said.
The current pay deal for 2022, 2023 and 2024 was eventually accepted by all employee groups except teachers, although two unions representing health staff did not agree it until the deal was nearly at its midway point in March 2023.
Teachers remained in dispute with the States until April last year, when an industrial tribunal ruled against their claim for a more generous pay award and imposed the three-year deal offered by the States.
But in a warning which could concern Deputy Gollop and his colleagues on the new P&R, the tribunal said that offer addressed pay erosion for teachers only ‘to a degree’, and noted that the issue was likely to re-emerge in future pay talks.
The tribunal also expressed sympathy with some concerns raised by teachers about P&R’s approach to pay talks.
