UNION bosses are locked in negotiations with Bolton Council over a deal they claim will hit some of their lowest paid workers.

The dispute has arisen over a new Single Status Agreement, which has to be implemented by April 1.

It slightly reduces the hours worked by manual staff, but Unison says conditions such as holiday entitlement, car expenses and unsocial hours payments will suffer.

And the manual workers - already among the town's lowest paid - will be asked to accept a pay freeze. Bernie Gallagher, Branch Secretary of UNISON challenged the local authority's claim that the Agreement would cost between £2.2 million and £3 million to implement. "We do not accept this is an accurate figure and will be challenging it during our negotiations," he said.

Many workers are already up in arms at the propect of a pay freeze and loss of other entitelments.

Ms Gallagher said: "We very much welcome the Single Status Agreement which was brought in in July 1997 because, traditionally, conditions of service for white collar workers were better than for manual workers.

"But we are concerned that some of our manual workers' conditions of service could be affected." A council spokesman told the BEN: "The Single Status Agreement reduces the working week for manual and craft employees from 39 hours to 37 hours for the same pay from April 1, next year.

"The Council is facing costs of more than £2 million a year to implement this part of the Agreement. National advice is that the Council and trade unions locally co-operate to minimise these costs in order to protect jobs and services.

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