A COUNCIL'S housing workforce faces an uncertain future after contract talks collapsed leaving it with a huge fight to keep the work.

Months of discussions between Wear Valley District Council chiefs, trade unions and about 60 staff from the council's housing maintenance service, have failed.

The council had asked employees to take wage cuts of around £50-a-week and to extend their working hours before putting the service out to tender under the Government rules on Best Value.

Council chiefs want to extend the hours of the service. They hoped a proposal to offer gas fitters £390, electricians, bricklayers and joiners £350 and labourers £270 a week in return for multi-skilling and flexible service hours would see the dispute resolved.

But workers, who took part in two secret ballots in July, rejected the proposal.

Housing director Michael Laing said the changes would have made the service stronger when it competes with private companies to win the maintenance contract. He said: "To make our in-house service strong enough to compete with the private sector we had to look to reduce the cost and improve the quality.

"Unfortunately no agreement was made, which puts the council workforce at a disadvantage when competing with private companies."

At a special housing services committee meeting last week, council leader Olive Brown said: "I am a firm believer in having our own workforce but the current situation cannot go on, this is very sad."

The service is now out to tender, with several companies already bidding for the contract. The council will select the service provider by January 1, 2004, with the new contract starting next April.

John Cosgrove, regional organiser for the Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians, said: "The council made around 20 redundancies and workers are already multi-skilled and agreed to flexible hours if the wages were left as they are.

"I'm hopeful that a condition of transfer of undertakings will be made a condition of the contract to offer some security to existing jobs."