Madam,

In the Cambrian News of 3 December, I read ‘Plaid Cymru in Gwynedd to oppose draft union bill.’

I am delighted.I note the wage rates offered by the council in 11 of the jobs currently advertised, under Gwynedd, Jobs, online.

A wage of £7.19 an hour is below the Living Wage by some way.

I ask Cllr Williams-Davies to condemn Plaid for offering such low wages.

Grossed up on a 40 hour week the annual income is about £14,500 per annum. This is almost £10,000 per annum less than the mid-point income (median) and about £20,000 per annum below the average (mean) income.

In the Labour Party I have campaigned for equal income for decades. Will Cllr Williams-Davies join me in demanding that the Plaid-dominated Gwynedd Council pay the Living Wage of £7.85 per hour immediately, in the next financial year pay no-one less than the median income, and by 2018 that they press on substantially towards the mean income for all workers.Cllr Williams-Davies intends that Gwynedd challenge the Tory government’s Trades Unions policy. Will she now pledge to fight the Tory government over the money it is accounting as due to Gwynedd so that Gwynedd can avoid cuts altogether and pay its workers, our workers, a living wage?

An overall five per cent increase in Council Tax, together with the additional two per cent allowable by the government, saves us half the cuts Gwynedd proposes. But what we really need is a Gwynedd Challenge, a Her Gwynedd, not to its people, but to the Tory government which is not allowing Gwynedd sufficient funds for the county council to pay its workers properly nor to avoid savage cuts in services that communities here, which are among the very poorest in Great Britain, desperately need.

Yours etc

Ian MacIntyre

Prospective Labour Party AM candidate for Dwyfor Meirionydd

Arthog Terrace

Arthog.