LOCAL government workers will call on their union today to give lay members a bigger role in negotiations and to consult them before making deals.

The special Unison conference comes as reps express fears that events in their pay dispute last year “could prove a death knell to national bargaining.”

Members of the public-sector union will today debate the decision to call off a one-day strike in October after councils offered workers an average 2.35 per cent rise over two years in place of the 1 per cent offer that they had voted to reject.

In a subsequent vote the new offer was accepted by all but two of the union’s 12 regions — greater London and north-west England.

The offer was also accepted by local government members in the GMB and Unite unions.

But under rarely invoked constitutional provisions, a chunk of Unison’s membership has demanded a special local government conference to hold the officers who made the decision to account.

One motion up for discussion, tabled by Birmingham and Sandwell branches, says that accepting the offer was “a mistake which completely undermined the national campaign to secure a decent pay rise for local government members and an end to five years of real-terms cuts in our members’ living standards.”

Another motion, tabled by the union’s south-west England region, blames “poor decision-making and a lack of strategy at a leadership level” for the “disappointing” end to last year’s pay campaign.

One London branch secretary voiced concern that events in the dispute had led to a number of Tory councils opting out of the National Joint Council (NJC) for Local Government Services bargaining body.

“There’s a view that the actions of 2014 could prove a death knell to national bargaining,” the rep said.

“The outcome of the dispute has brought into question the future of the NJC.

“My view is that in future we should not go into battle with nothing more than a one-day strike. We need a commitment to an escalation strategy.”

Some branches have called for guaranteed representation of lay officers at negotiation meetings in their motions.

Unison’s NJC committee has backed a motion affirming the deal “falls short,” but calls on members to “respect” the vote to accept the decision.