Striking flood workers using food banks, says union leader on Shrewsbury picket line
Staff who protected thousands of homes in the latest bout of Shropshire floods are having to use food banks, a leader has said.
Environment Agency (EA) staff were on strike on Wednesday as part of a pay dispute, holding a picket by the flood barriers in Shrewsbury's Frankwell car park.
Around 30 Unison members were in attendance, including some from Shropshire Council. They held up flags and placards with slogans including 'On strike for fair pay', 'From the frontline to the breadline' and 'If our pay doesn't rise, we will'.
They chanted: "What do we want? A decent pay rise. When do we want it? Now!"
Adam Shipp, Unison representative for the EA in the West Midlands, has worked for the agency for 33 years, mainly as an environment officer, but more recently as a catchment co-ordinator. He laid bare the gravity of the situation.
"Some of our members are having to use food banks. I met with one member who is having to sell her house," he said.
"We've had a 25 per cent pay cut in real terms since 2010."
Workers have been offered a two per cent pay rise, but members do not feel that is a fair deal in comparison to the private sector, which is receiving an average 7.2 per cent rise, and the national rate of inflation, which is around 10.6 per cent.
"It's not sustainable for our members," said Adam.
"Our budget has been cut from £128 million to £40 million since the Conservatives have been in power. In real terms, it means we can't attend 75 to 80 per cent of incidents. We can't get out to river pollution incidents.
"I've been doing this for more than 30 years and it breaks my heart. Staff morale is at rock bottom."
He said the public had been supportive of workers on the picket lines during the strike. "We were up at Shelton earlier during the school run and people were beeping their horns and offering their support as they were driving by. They understand that we do a really important job protecting people's lives and livelihoods.
"That's why we wanted to hold the picket at the flood barriers here in Frankwell. This is what we do 24/7, but we're not getting the pay we deserve.
"It's a hard job but we do it because we're protecting thousands of properties. We protected 4,000 properties from flooding in the latest floods."
Rob Davies, a hydrometry officer with the EA who provides valuable updates on social media during serious weather incidents, has been with the EA for around 17 years.
He said: "It's got to the point where it's starting to bite. We do this because we love the job.
"The support has been really good. Last week when we were working on the floods we had members of the public coming and patting us on the back.
"The salaries used to be quite competitive but now we're struggling to recruit. We can't compete with the private consultancies.
"The front line staff are running on goodwill a lot of the time, but the goodwill is starting to run out."
Workers had an agreement in place that if there was severe flooding during the strike, they would suspend the action and return to work as they did in Somerset.
