Amey bosses celebrated profits while offering below-inflation pay rises

theguardian.com:

Bosses at the outsourcing firm Amey celebrated a £500m jump in revenue and £92m rise in profits even as it clashed with workers over a below-inflation pay offer that a union says “would shame Scrooge”, a video reveals.

The self-described “largest strategic supplier to government” employs thousands of staff on outsourced contracts and has been fighting calls from staff including school cleaners, caretakers and bin collectors to be paid the same level as those employed directly by councils.

The company said in May that such demands could lead to pay rises of up to 30% that would be “fundamentally unsustainable”, but a video briefing accidentally shared online appears to tell a different story.

In the clip, obtained by the Guardian, Amey’s chief executive, Amanda Fisher, who was paid more than £750,000 last year, and the chief financial officer, Andrew Nelson, praise each other on an outstandingly good start to the year.

“The high level numbers show that the turnover of the core business was some £2.4bn,” Nelson says. “More remarkable is that this is almost £500m or 25% more than we had expected when we put the budget together, and as Amanda said all of the businesses exceeded their original targets.”

Nelson goes on to say that profits, or earnings, are likely to be £92m higher than expected.

Amey employees who clean and maintain schools in Glasgow are preparing to go on strike in order to achieve pay parity with those employed by the local authority.

In the video, Fisher says the company is “committed to paying the real living wage” and that it will continue to do so. Amey is paying the Glasgow cleaners £9.90 an hour, the minimum required under the real living wage deal.

Fisher said the majority of staff would be awarded a 4.21%