TRADE union dedication to improving the lot of the worse off goes out the window when you show the brothers and sisters a differential.

And that's why the desk-bound town hall staff at Blackburn with Darwen Council are getting hot under their white collars and threatening industrial action - as they stand to lose theirs.

Solidarity? Equality? Because a new national agreement for local authority employees puts manual workers' terms and conditions on a par with theirs, those with shiny backsides are hopping mad that their holiday entitlement may come down by five days to the level of the blue collars' 27 days and their working week should go up by all of an exhausting 45 minutes to an even 37 hours for all.

It is also proposed that they get paid less for working overtime and pay for their car parking.

Since this new deal is already costing the council more than £1 million a year to implement, there is no good reason why it should cost the towns' taxpayers even more by equalising terms at the higher level enjoyed by employees in the cocooned culture of flexi-time, tea trolleys and two-day bank holidays.

The council has done right to be prudent and realistic, right down to ending that disgraceful and hugely-expensive perk of free town-centre parking for hundreds of town hall staff, many of whom spend their days drawing up plans to make life costlier and more difficult for other motorists.

But that said, will these new hard-nosed councillors, who have left the town hall trade unionists slack-jawed at a Labour Council having the pluck to do this, now look in the mirror and justify the handsome perks they have awarded themselves at a cost to the taxpayers of a cool £300,000 a year - and do so without blushing?

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.