Christmas is coming up and there will be bills to pay in January,  in addition we realises that these are difficult times for our members and so you will be pleased to know that we have successfully negotiated with the Council to ensure that your strike pay deductions will not be taken from your salary until February 2012.  The formula for deductions is 1/260th of your annual salary, in line with the law and an important high court case UNISON won in relation to strike pay deductions.

The law and strike pay deductions

In 2008 the High Court issued an important judgment that had the potential to affect all workers who take strike action anywhere in the UK.

The effect of the decision was that employers must include payments for annual leave and bank holidays when calculating how much salary to deduct for strike action.

UNISON's legal services department brought a test case, Cooper v Isle of Wight College, following strike action to protect members' pension rights on 26 March 2006.

The union decided to bring the case because of a long-standing practice in the further education sector of calculating the amount to be deducted on the basis of the value of the day's salary after excluding employees' holiday and annual leave days.

This formula was chosen by many colleges on the advice of the Association of Colleges and resulted in around 1/228th of the annual salary being deducted for a single day's strike.

They argued that this is because the value of the workers' services to the employer is only provided on the working days - and not on days that are taken off on leave - even though the wages paid for those services are also paid over the holiday period.

One of the colleges that adopted the advice from the Association of Colleges was the Isle of Wight College.

UNISON has always accepted that employers are entitled to deduct wages for time spent on strike, but this deduction should be equivalent to what would otherwise be paid to the worker for the day.

That is why we have consistently argued that the correct method of deducting salaries during strike action is to deduct the weekend and other non-working days - but not annual leave or bank holidays - resulting in a formula of 1/260th of the annual salary for a day's strike.

The amounts of money deducted were small, but the principle of the case is much bigger and, for many members, there was an important issue that needed to be resolved with this test case.

UNISON argued that the 1/260th deduction was explicable by the fact that, under their contracts, the employees in whose name the test case was taken - national further education and sixth form committee member Stephen Cooper, together with two other members at the college, Graham Crouch and Christopher Rann - worked a 37-hour week, but that each was "entitled to receive ... normal remuneration for all bank and public holidays normally observed in England and Wales and to a further 25 working days in each holiday year".

UNISON argued that their annual salary had to be apportioned between the working hours as defined in the contract, spread over the 52 weeks of the year; producing a formula for calculation of a days pay of 1/260th of the annual salary.

After considering the question, the High Court agreed with UNISON's lawyers and found that the correct formula for deductions was 1/260th of the annual salary and that the defendant college was not entitled to deduct the sums that it had.

The High Court issued a declaration stating that the deduction of 1/228th of the salary was unlawful.

The court also awarded UNISON its costs.

The decision means that the Isle of Wight College should have deducted only 1/260th of the annual salary of a striker for the one-day strike and not the 1/228th that it did.

The ruling has implications for all employers making deductions from employees' wages for taking strike action. It makes it clear that employers will fall foul of the law if they exclude annual leave and bank holidays from their calculations.

This has permanently removed what was perceived as a thorn in the side for workers who are already sacrificing their incomes to lawfully advance their industrial causes.

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Thank you to all our members and Stewards who supported the strike on 30 November. This was a historic day as thousands of Wakefield Unison members united to say: "Enough is enough" in reply to the attack on their pensions.

Council Buildings and the vast majority of schools were closed and pickets were out at their workplaces from very early morning.

Teachers, Nurses, Bin men, Firemen, Carers, Social Workers and Prison Officers, were among the 2,000 people demonstrating against attacks on their pensions which showed the strength of feeling and support.

Much of Wakefield ground to a halt as thousands of trade union members marched through the City and crammed into Cathedral Square for the largest Trade Union Rally the City has seen in years.

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(3/11/11) The Council’s Cabinet met on 18th October 2011 and agreed a report which outlined how they aim to become a Catalyst Council.  In response, UNISON representatives sought an urgent meeting with the Council Leader to express our continued concern at the direction the Council is taking.

The proposals within the report seek wholesale change of service delivery and have been arrived at as a result of asking the providers in the marketplace what they would offer to deliver, which UNISON would condemn as a completely inappropriate basis for a major service delivery change.

The Council are looking at a series of options including expansion of the current partnership with Norfolk Property Services, develop a case for a joint venture partnership for corporate and transactional services, and to develop a “Local Authority Trading Company (LATC)”.

The proposed options will affect many Council employees and in our opinion is wholesale privatisation of Council services.

The report is in our view ideologically driven and uses the excuse in recommending the changes in Government spending cuts and legislation.

Whilst UNISON are fully aware that the Council is facing increasing pressure from Government to improve services and deliver efficiency savings, we do not share the Council’s view that this can only be delivered by external providers.

The Council’s case for change appears from the report to remain primarily economic with savings of £67million being made from 2015.  However, there is no indication how much they intend to save through these changes; the speculative claim in the report of “a 10 – 25% saving on the costs, saving between £10 - £25million over the term of any agreement” comes from comments during the market testing meetings and responses and at the upper end, this is likely to be an over-estimate.

However, more importantly and worryingly, there is seemingly little consideration of whether in-house changes could match or exceed this, thereby increasing our concern that there is a clear ideological (pro-outsourcing) angle to the proposals.  Of the specific recommendations we have a number of detailed concerns.

Review and Expansion of the Current Partnership with Norfolk Property Services

This is a huge problem; for starters, UNISON would argue that that contract would need to be tendered.  It is unbelievable that the Council would propose to give a contract for £25million a year to one company (NPS) without fully exploring other options, including in-house.

Develop a “Local Trading Company” (LATC) for Social Care Services

This is a high risk commercial option.  The report quotes three examples of this happening elsewhere – Essex, Kensington and Chelsea, and Stockport.  It has also happened in Sefton.

In the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea the company “Chelsea Cave” was put into liquidation in May 2011 by its independent directors.  The Council has written off £300,000 of equity investment, despite it planning to employ staff on zero hours contracts, and paying just above the minimum wage.

Develop a New Strategic Partnership for Corporate and Transactional Services

There are 3 options here to establish a strategic partnership – for corporate and transactional services, public realm services and for professional support services to schools.  The recommendation is to go for the corporate and transactional services and produce a further report on schools.

Therefore, it appears that the Council has already decided to establish a strategic partnership and now wants to work out which services to put in.  This makes no sense in terms of best value.  The Council should, in our view, be looking at the Services first, and then deciding on the options for providing them; again, in-house delivery should remain an option.

They also appear to be looking to include HR, Finance, Facilities Management, Strategic Procurement, Property and Asset Management, customer-facing services, Contract Centre, Revenues and Benefits, ICT and Legal Services because they are “areas of interest to the market” (section 5.5 of the report) rather than because it is a good idea from the perspective of the Council or service users.

Of further concern is that on the LATC proposal, the Council will transfer staff under TUPE on current terms and conditions.  However, any new employees after transfer may be recruited on different terms and conditions of employment, thereby operating on a two-tier workforce arrangement.  Different terms and conditions will, in reality, mean worse terms and conditions which, in the long term will, as evidence elsewhere shows, have a detrimental effect on those staff transferring. 

UNISON is at the forefront of arguing for public sector solutions to public sector reform.  There is a huge amount of evidence that public services deliver good value for money and quality services which cannot be matched by the private sector.

We have presented to the Council a document for agreement which, amongst a number of things, seeks to ensure that a properly resourced in-house service improvement plan will precede and inform any procurement process, and be included in any options appraisal exercise.  This would enable the employer and staff representatives working together to improve service delivery and avoid any need to contract out those services.

Unfortunately, despite a number of meetings with the Council, they have so far steadfastly refused to agree to our proposed document.

The increased threat of privatisation is clearly very worrying and arrives at the same time that we are facing attacks to our pensions, terms and conditions and pay.

The Branch will be meeting with all Council stewards to discuss how best to respond to the Council’s privatisation proposals.  We have already requested from the Council a copy of the business case for each service area, but we recognise that we will need to do more.  We will keep you informed of all developments.

Terry Ratcliffe
Branch Secretary

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(12/10/11) The Council have commenced consultation with UNISON with the intention of reaching a collective agreement regarding the following proposals:-

Incremental progression: frozen for a period of 2 years for employees that are due an annual increment.  Consideration has been given to the fact that this will realise savings without having a major impact on employees as they are not currently in receipt of the increment.  When incremental progression resumes it will carry on from where it left off and not from where an employee would have been, had incremental progression continued.

Annual leave: reduce annual leave for a period of 2 years by 3 days per year (pro-rata) for those employees who are at the top of their grade or on spot salaries.  The amount of leave was determined by it being roughly equivalent in monetary terms to an increment.  This aims to introduce fairness to the proposals as not all employees are affected by freezing incremental progression.

Enhancements: reduce all future amounts payable for undertaking weekend/night working, shift premiums including split shifts, public holidays and overtime.  In order to achieve immediate savings the protection of earnings policy will not apply to the new proposals.

Specific proposals are:

• Weekend/night working – reduce to 1.2 from 1.33

• Shift premiums – reduce to 2.5% from 5%

• Split shifts – reduce to 0.5% per day with a maximum of 2.5% per week from 1% to maximum of 5% per week

• Public holidays – reduce to time and a third and TOIL from double time and TOIL

• Overtime – reduce to one rate of 1.2 from 1.33 Monday to Saturday and 1.66 Sunday.  Reduce Bank Holidays to 1.33 from double time

• The first hour paid at plain time from 1st half hour paid at plain time

These proposals are the Council’s response to required savings of £22 million for 2012 with projected savings of £13 million and £12 million for 2013/14.  The Council told the unions that they are seeking to achieve these savings with minimum impact on services and/or compulsory redundancies.  The proposals apply to all staff except teachers.

In response, UNISON expressed anger and concern with the proposals and at this stage have given no indication whatsoever that they are in any way acceptable. 

As members employed on NJC Terms and Conditions, you are already on less favourable arrangements than those that exist elsewhere in the public sector.  This would particularly apply to annual leave.  In addition, we are already in the middle of a pay freeze imposed by the Government which in itself followed below inflation pay increases in 5 of the last 7 years before the freeze.

Whilst we realise these are difficult times and the impact of the comprehensive spending review is increasing pressure on all local authorities, including Wakefield, UNISON do not believe it is either fair or desirable to attack our terms and conditions of employment which were hard fought for over a number of years, particularly when, at this stage, the Council in putting forward the proposals, are not even giving any guarantee of job security in return for inferior terms and conditions.  Even if they do offer such an arrangement, should we allow our conditions of service to be whittled away in creating “bargain basement” conditions of service in Wakefield Council.

The proposals as submitted may also have equality implications as they may have a disproportional impact on certain groups of workers; in this case this would apply to women and it may be in breach of equality legislation and the Branch are taking advice on this matter from equality experts.

The Council has already indicated during initial discussions that whilst they are seeking a collective agreement with the union on the proposals, if this is not possible then they may seek to impose changes by issuing what is called a Section 188 letter which would, in effect, dismiss and re-engage staff on inferior terms and conditions of service.  UNISON would be strongly opposed to such an arrangement and would be keen to avoid this happening. 

It is clear that these are very challenging times for all of us.  UNISON will continue to negotiate with the Council in an effort to reach a satisfactory outcome.  We have already requested further information on the proposals and the alleged savings they claim to make but, to repeat, we have made it clear that we do not believe that these cuts are either necessary or fair.

We will continue to keep all members affected by the proposals fully briefed and updated on developments.  The Branch have called an emergency meeting of all Council shop stewards where it is vital that your views are taken into account.  Stewards should consult with you about these proposals in advance of the meeting and if you do not have a steward or are unsure, then either you or one of your colleagues should seek to become a steward.  If you are interested in doing this, then please contact your Branch Office on tel: 01924 305360 to discuss the matter further.

Further meetings with the employer are scheduled next week and we will issue further updates following the meeting.  It is our intention to hold meetings with members before the negotiations are concluded and again we will inform you of these arrangements shortly.

Finally, it is important during these difficult times of attacks on your terms and conditions, pensions, and the threat of privatisation arising from the Catalyst Council Report, that we increase our membership which, in turn, will increase our bargaining strength.  The more members we have the stronger we will be in protecting your terms and conditions, jobs, pensions.  If possible, talk to your colleagues or friends who may not be in the union about what is happening and about what the union is doing. 

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There's never been a more important time for UNISON members to get involved in campaigning. Our public services, jobs and pensions are being targeted by Cameron and Clegg who are determined to make workers and service users pay the price of the global recession.

We will not sit back while societies are ripped apart and the vulnerable are tossed aside to pay for the greed of the bankers. Every part of UNISON - our members, branches, regions and the union nationally - has a part to play. We all need to show the politicians that UNISON members will not stand by while their policies damage our communities.

These web pages have pulled together all UNISON's campaigning resources to help with all your campaigning needs.

Our Guide to Effective Campaigning will help you plan your campaign, our briefings (factsheets) will give you the arguments to help you make your case to politicians, colleagues or the public, our how to guides are packed with handy hints to help you deliver an effective campaign. And you can use our online print service to create professional campaigning literature and our Million Voices web pages to share your campaigning experience and learn from others.

So, what are you waiting for - let's get campaigning! Find out more...

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The Branch produces a regular newsletter with news and views from across Wakefield. Our news section also includes achived newsletters so you can follow how stories have developed.

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IT’S PANTOMIME TIME!

This Years panto is ALADDIN, Wakefield Theatre Royal
Saturday 3rd December 2011

APPLY NOW.. Dowload the application Form here...

Once again we’ve brought the date of the Pantomime forward this year but this year there is only ONE performance – the matinee in the afternoon - 2.30pm.

Tickets are priced at the reduced rate of £9 per adult and £6 per child for the stalls and dress circle. A family ticket for four (must include at least 1 adult) in the upper circle is £22.

A box which seats 4 people is £40. Tickets are limited to 4 per member and can only be applied for by this application form. This offer is only open to members of Wakefield MD Unison Branch.

PLEASE NOTE NO REFUNDS GIVEN.

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