shoeshine
01-11-2006, 12:00
What can one say?
"Lunacy" comes to mind. I'm glad I'm not paying Council Tax in Birmingham! :(
A council street and traffic lights engineer was paid £91,000 last year, including £20,000 in bonuses, despite being off sick.
Ian Smith enjoyed a basic salary of £71,000 and also picked up a £15,668 "stand-by" bonus - for being available during anti-social hours - and £5,000 in overtime, even though he was not working.
Mr Smith is an Amicus union representative at Birmingham city council's street lighting direct labour organisation. He is employed at the council's Spring Lane depot in Erdington and is described as a "signals" operative on the 2005/06 wage sheet that details his pay.
Seven years ago he was accused of endorsing "bully boy" tactics to frighten off seven private firms from bidding for a £13 million, three-year deal to look after Birmingham's street lights.
The disclosure about his pay comes shortly after it was disclosed that road workers in the city were earning up to £53,000 a year for painting lines and cleaning bollards by manipulating the bonus and overtime structures to double their basic wage. The leaked documents, which detailed wages and bonuses for workers in the highways department, prompted the council to overhaul the payment structure and scrap existing rewards from April 1 next year.
Full Story - Telegraph Online today (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/11/01/ncouncil01.xml)
"Lunacy" comes to mind. I'm glad I'm not paying Council Tax in Birmingham! :(
A council street and traffic lights engineer was paid £91,000 last year, including £20,000 in bonuses, despite being off sick.
Ian Smith enjoyed a basic salary of £71,000 and also picked up a £15,668 "stand-by" bonus - for being available during anti-social hours - and £5,000 in overtime, even though he was not working.
Mr Smith is an Amicus union representative at Birmingham city council's street lighting direct labour organisation. He is employed at the council's Spring Lane depot in Erdington and is described as a "signals" operative on the 2005/06 wage sheet that details his pay.
Seven years ago he was accused of endorsing "bully boy" tactics to frighten off seven private firms from bidding for a £13 million, three-year deal to look after Birmingham's street lights.
The disclosure about his pay comes shortly after it was disclosed that road workers in the city were earning up to £53,000 a year for painting lines and cleaning bollards by manipulating the bonus and overtime structures to double their basic wage. The leaked documents, which detailed wages and bonuses for workers in the highways department, prompted the council to overhaul the payment structure and scrap existing rewards from April 1 next year.
Full Story - Telegraph Online today (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/11/01/ncouncil01.xml)