£570 Payment For Those Losing Allowances

Cllr Alan Rudge, Cabinet Member for HR & Equalities, announced yesterday a payment of £570 to those on Grades 1 - 4 losing more than £250 a year in shift, weekend pay and reduced night working allowance. Part timers will get the payment in proportion to their hours, so for example a person working half time (18.50 hours) will receive £285 if they have lost over £125 a year. The payment will be made in the January monthly payroll. We understand it will be subject to tax and national insurance, but is not pensionable.

We have been discussing this with corporate HR for a month or more. There was a report on this in the last branch newsletter mailed out to all branch members. There is also a news article on the branch web site too.

It is important to stress that this does not resolve the dispute and we have been asked to make no commitment to end our opposition to the new Martini contract. It gives some short term relief, perhaps a month or two's losses will be covered for some but by no means all.

As we said in the branch newsletter, the fact that management are able to find £1.3m for this and to prioritise that the money should go to those losing so much pay, just demonstrates that the pressure we are all putting them under is having some effect.

We have held lobbies, taken three days of strike action, taken the issue to councillors in their surgeries and in the constituency public meetings. We have been all over the local media opposing these cruel cuts in pay. UNISON has accompanied members to literally thousands of individual consultation meetings, dismissal hearings and appeal hearings. And we are not going to let the issue drop. Woe betide the Conservatives and Lib Dems in the local elections in May if they are still implementing what amounts to cuts in a third of pay for people earning only £15-19,000 a year.

Why is the payment only to grades 1 - 4 ? We believe it should go to everyone. Management however wanted to make sure that there is no equality bias in the payment and said that there might be if paid to all staff, regardless of grade. They were not prepared to take that risk.

We did manage to secure a little increase to the original offer, from £500 to £570 on the basis that the minimum loss was raised from £100 to £250. It was UNISON specifically which secured this. We recognise that those losing under £500 a year still need some compensation, because they will have this loss not just in one year but in every year from now on.

It might be hard on those losing between £100 and £250 a year, but we hope those members will understand that they are in a very different situation to someone who is facing a loss of say £2,000 this year and possibly up to £5000 from November 2012. There is a balance to be struck here. Ultimately it is management's decision not ours, but our approach was to try to get as much support to those with the greatest need.

What we really wanted to do was to have two or three levels of payment, a smaller one, a middle sized one and a larger one, depending on how much people are losing in total. But management would not support this. Again they said they were worried that there might be equalities differences introduced by this more complicated formula.

So what's next ? We do need to keep up the pressure on the politicians if we are to stop these cruel cuts. Have you been to see your councillors ? Would you be prepared to write to your councillors, and to send us a copy of your correspondence ? Would you help form a group of members in your constituency who would attend their surgeries or the constituency meetings and raise the issue there ? If so, contact the branch because we are continuing with all these actions.

Finally, I have to say this further mitigation step presents quite a challenge to the Labour Group on the council. They are almost definitely going to take power in 2012. The Con Dem coalition are entirely to blame for creating and imposing the Martini contract. But they can legitimately say they have taken some mitigation steps, limiting losses from the core allowances (but not other things like essential car user allowances) to 10% of take home pay for one year and now making a £570 one-off payment. And they have left a sting in the tail for Labour as the 10% mitigation ends in November 2012, with thousands facing further losses of another 10 or 20%.

What will Labour do ?

Next Christmas, will they be the Scrooges the ConDems want them to be ? Or will they try to be Father Christmas with one-off payments which barely last into the New Year. Or will they do the decent thing and restore our members pay ?

Graeme Horn, Joint Branch Secretary