Council threatens injunction over planned strike in children's services

Kirklees Council has threatened to seek an injunction to stop a strike going ahead in its children’s service, the Unison trade union has said.

The strike is due to take place on 27 January for 24 hours in protest at what the union says is under staffing and excessive use of agency staff.

Unison branch secretary Paul Holmes told Local Government Lawyer: “They told us they would take an injunction if we didn’t all of the strike by the 16th of January, well we didn’t and its now the 17th and we’ve not heard any more.”

He said union members’ concerns about staffing levels had built up over five years and pointed to an Ofsted report on Kirklees children’s services in November, which rated these as ‘inadequate’.

The council is understood to have challenged the way in which Unison conducted the strike ballot but Mr Holmes said the union’s lawyers had approved the process.

Kirklees did not respond to a request for comment.

Mark Smulian