HUNDREDS of council workers may be balloted over industrial action after being told their pay will be cut by up to 3000.

Around 850 staff at West Lothian Council will see their salaries reduced as part of a massive review of local authority wage structures. The remainder of the council’s 6000 workers will get paid more, or stay the same.

But the decision has provoked anger among staff and union leaders have instructed unhappy workers not to sign new contracts. They refused to rule out a ballot on industrial action over the issue.

The wage restructuring is part of a nationwide reassessment of pay in local authorities. The unrest in West Lothian will concern staff at Edinburgh City Council, where negotiations between employer and unions are ongoing. They are expected to finalise details of a deal in the coming weeks.

Council staff in East Lothian are being consulted on similar plans, which will see around 500 staff suffer pay cuts, while initial talks have begun in Midlothian.

Unison, which represents public sector workers, is advising West Lothian staff to refuse to sign new contracts, after failing to reach an agreement with the council.

But council officials insist anyone who does not sign will have their contracts terminated and be re-employed under new contracts anyway.

One IT worker, with more than ten years’ experience, was told yesterday his salary would be cut by 11 per cent, or around 2900. He said around 90 per cent of his colleagues in the department faced pay cuts.

He said: “We were all shocked. It’s a kick in the teeth for people who have been here for some time. These jobs are really specialised, but we’re ending up with the wages we started with.

“I’ll be losing 233 a month - almost my mortgage payments. We’ve had no consultation.”

All jobs have been re-evaluated, with around 14 per cent of employees being “red-circled” meaning their pay will be reduced. Most staff affected will not be paid at the lower rate immediately, but will have their pay “protected” for up to four years, meaning their pay will be frozen over that time.

A Unison spokesman said: “We are disappointed West Lothian seems to be seeking to engineer a dispute with its workforce on this issue, instead of continuing negotiations towards an agreement.

“We will resist the imposition of unilaterally decided contracts by any means open to us, including litigation and/or industrial action should this be appropriate.”

Peter Johnston, the leader of West Lothian Council, said all local authorities were in a difficult position over introducing the new structures, which are meant to ensure equal pay for all jobs of a similar standing. The review was prompted by multi-million-pound equal pay claims by mainly women workers who have been paid less than men in similar grade jobs.

Mr Johnston said: “We have done everything possible to get a deal with Unison. The ‘red-circled’ employees

will have a protected salary for up to four years, and we will be trying to see if they can do some retraining so they can move up and out of the red circle.”

He said only a “tiny minority” of staff would lose 3000.

Staff are being asked to sign contracts by June 22, and the new pay structures will be introduced in October.

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The honour was intended to recognise the contribution to literature by one of Britain’s most high-profile - and much vilified - writers. But the government’s decision to give Salman Rushdie a knighthood has generated the kind of international furore that once threatened to engulf his career and put his life at risk.

Yesterday, indignation at the award for the writer of The Satanic Verses, spread to Islamabad, with one Pakistani minister reported yesterday as saying that a suicide bomb attack would be a justified response to the award of the knighthood.

The Pakistan parliament called on the British government to reverse the decision or face further protests from Muslim nations. “If someone commits suicide bombing to protect the honour of the Prophet Muhammad, his act is justified,” the minister for religious affairs, Ijaz ul-Haq, told Pakistan’s national assembly, according to the translation from Urdu by Reuters. He urged Muslim countries to break diplomatic ties with London.

“This is an occasion for the [world’s] 1.5 billion Muslims to look at the seriousness of this decision,” said Mr ul-Haq, the son of the former Pakistan military leader, Zia ul-Haq. “If Muslims do not unite, the situation will get worse and Salman Rushdie may get a seat in the British parliament.”

His comments were reported on local news networks and provoked an angry response around the world. Effigies of the Queen and Rushdie were burned in the eastern Pakistan city of Multan as students chanted “Kill him! Kill him!”

Mr ul-Haq said his main intention had been to examine the root causes of terrorism; he denied he was encouraging suicide bombing. The Foreign Office is seeking a full transcript of his remarks before making an official response.

Pakistan’s lower house of parliament also passed a resolution condemning the decision to knight the Booker prize winner. “We deplore the decision,” said Pakistan foreign ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam yesterday. Rushdie’s knighthood would hamper inter-faith understanding, she said. “This we feel is insensitive and we [will] convey our sentiments to the British government.”

Britain’s high commissioner to Pakistan, Robert Brinkley, defended the decision to award Rushdie a knighthood and tried to defuse the situation. “It is simply untrue to suggest that this in anyway is an insult to Islam or the Prophet Muhammad, and we have enormous respect for Islam as a religion and for its intellectual and cultural achievements,” he said in a statement last night.

The Muslim Council of Britain, while condemning any threats to Rushdie’s life, also attacked the decision to grant him a knighthood. “Salman Rushdie earned notoriety among Muslims for the highly insulting and blasphemous manner in which he portrayed early Islamic figures much-loved and honoured by them,” Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said. “The insensitive decision to grant Rushdie a knighthood can therefore only do harm to the image of our country in the eyes of hundreds of millions of Muslims across the world,” he added. “Many will interpret the knighthood as a final contemptuous parting gift from Tony Blair to the Muslim world.”

Labour peer Lord Ahmed said: “It’s hypocrisy by Tony Blair who two weeks ago was talking about building bridges to mainstream Muslims, and then he’s honouring a man who has insulted the British public and been divisive in community relations.”

It is believed Mr Blair was not involved in the decision to knight Rushdie, who has expressed delight at the knighthood. His name was recommended to the Queen by a cabinet office committee. A fatwa was imposed on Rushdie in 1989 by Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini. The writer was forced into hiding and he was provided with a security team by the government.

Career of controversy: A writer greeted with veneration or violence

As he celebrates his 60th birthday today and the award of a knighthood for services to literature, Ahmed Salman Rushdie can look back on a career that has has attracted both great admiration and violent controversy.

Educated at the Cathedral School in his native city Bombay, Rugby and Kings College, Cambridge, he came to international prominence through his second novel, Midnight’s Children, published in 1981 to universal acclaim. It won him the Booker prize.

It was his fourth novel, The Satanic Verses, published in 1988, that provoked the ire of many Muslims and led to the issuing of a fatwa in 1989 by the Iranian leader, Ayatollah Khomeini. Scotland Yard reported a number of attempts to assassinate him and he had to go into hiding with an armed police guard. The Japanese publisher of the book was killed, others associated with the book suffered attacks and threats. The UK broke off diplomatic relations with Iran; they were only restored in 1998 after the Iranian government had given assurances that they would not harm Rushdie.

Also the winner of the Booker of Bookers award, Rushdie’s other works include Shame (1983), The Moor’s Last Sigh (1995) and The Ground Beneath My Feet (1999).

Married three times, currently to Padma Lakshmi, he has two sons. He is based in New York after many years in London.
Duncan Campbell

Working Wounded Blog: Quitters Who Win By BOB ROSNER

July 4, 2007

“They deserve better. They are good people. There is a good thing going on here. And it’s time for me to leave.”

And with that statement, the 16-year career of Seattle Mariner’s manager Mike Hargrove came to an abrupt end Sunday. He talked about the fact that he was no longer able to give the 100 percent effort he was asking of his players and so it was time for him to leave.

Hargrove is just one example of an individual who decided to leave his job not because he had to, but because the fire inside him didn’t burn as brightly as it once did. This week we’ll look at other high-visibility quitters and share the results of a very surprising poll that could change the way that you view quitting from now on.

But first, take Tiki Barber. When he retired from the New York Giants football team, he had just completed his fifth consecutive 1,000-yard rushing season and was a Pro Bowl selection. But rather than add to his legacy  and yards  as the 17th best rusher in the history of the NFL, he decided to hang up his cleats while still on top of his game at only 31 years old.

Not since Jim Brown’s retirement from pro football in 1965, after only nine years, has there been so much conversation about people at the top of their profession who voluntarily chose to leave the game.

There are many reasons why such people walk. High-salaried athletes can walk away and not have to worry about money. Media opportunities, like Barber’s new job as a TV commentator, can provide visibility, income and satisfaction, all without blindside hits from 300-pound behemoths.

But don’t get me started on the whole “I wanted to spend more time with my family” malarkey. That is a rap that is almost exclusively used by people who are either past their sell date or who never had game in the first place. Think I’m being too harsh? Then next time you hear someone at a news conference play the “family card” look at the deer-in-the-headlights eyes of the family members standing nearby who stand to “gain” from all this extra attention. Case closed.

But there is another reason for moving on that seldom gets the attention it deserves. Tiki, Mike and Jim are three examples of people who no longer need to be defined by their jobs, even as many others lust for the opportunity that they voluntarily left behind.

Which leads to a fascinating study by Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital. Researchers set out to explore the heart attack risk of a variety of different job-related pressures. They selected meeting a high-pressure deadline, laying someone off, getting a promotion and quitting as possible scenarios. Which do you think increased the risk of heart attack the most?

Actually I gave them to you in the correct order. Meeting a high-pressure deadline had the largest impact on heart attack risk: It increased it 2.3 times. Laying someone off increased heart attack risk 2.2 times. Getting a promotion increased risk 1.6 times. And quitting did not increase your risk for heart attack.

Anyone who has ever suited up in a Little League game has heard the cliche “winners never quit and quitters never win.” Suddenly Mike, Tiki and Jim look less like losers and more like winners who listened to their hearts, in more ways than one.

Quote of the Week

“Work is the basis of living. I’ll never retire. A man’ll rust out quicker than he’ll wear out.” — Colonel Harland Sanders, founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken

Book Excerpt of the Week

“What Should I Do With My Life” by Po Bronson (Random House, 2002)

“I used to think certain jobs were ‘cool,’ and more likely to inspire passion. Now I know passion is rooted in deeply felt experiences, which can happen anywhere. I used to think life presented a five-page menu of choices. Now I think the choice is in whether to be honest, to ourselves and others, and the rest is more of an uncovering, a peeling away of layers, discovering talents we assumed we didn’t have. I used to treasure the innocence of first love. Now I treasure the hard-fought. I used to want to change the world. Now I’m open to letting it change me.”

Bob Rosner is a best-selling author, an internationally syndicated columnist, popular speaker and a recent addition to the community of bloggers. He welcomes your comments at bob@workingwounded.com.

This work is the opinion of the columnist and in no way reflects the opinion of ABC News.