Hundreds of thousands of us joined the March for a Future that Works in London, Glasgow and Belfast on 20 October. Now the march is over but UNISON’s campaigning on all the issues that affect its members will continue.
The pay freeze, regional pay, a living wage, attacks on facility time and local campaigns are all issues relevant to UNISON members that the union will be focusing on over the following months.
Pay matters
The public sector pay freeze has gone on long enough, and it is time for the assault on the living standards of local government workers to end, UNISON has said: ‘Time for assault on local government workers to end’. http://www.unison.org.uk/news/news_view.asp?did=8152
In health, UNISON has made its submission to the Pay Review Body and is waiting for its response: Time to care for those who care http://www.unison.org.uk/asppresspack/pressrelease_view.asp?id=2846
And we’re continuing to focus on a Living Wage. Get ready for Living Wage Week http://www.unison.org.uk/efocus/news_view.asp?did=8161
Regional pay
In the South West 20 NHS trusts have set up a Cartel (or South West regional pay consortium) to fix pay, terms and conditions and to create a regional pay system.
Each Trust has paid in £10,000 of public money to pay for consultants to look into plans to set up regional pay.
This plan would take affected South West healthcare staff out of the nationally negotiated Agenda for Change terms and conditions.
UNISON is fighting these proposals because we believe they are bad for patient care, bad for the NHS and bad for staff in South West England.
For more information on the campaign visit UNISON South West.
Facility time
The government is encouraging councils to attack union facility time. But independent research in 2012 revealed that facility time saves the taxpayer money by providing a ready-made structure for meaningful consultation and negotiation.
It also improves workplace relations and helps organisations to cope with change, such as the huge cuts, job losses and reorganisations that are currently hitting the public sector.
The research by NatCen revealed that as well as providing a useful structure for staff consultation, facility time saves organisations money and provides reassurance to employees that their views are valued in decision-making.
It allows partnership working with trade unions that improves workplace relations and the reputation of an employer as a good place to work.
It allows earlier intervention into complaints, grievances and disciplinaries, preventing escalation into more serious problems. This saves organisations and taxpayers money by reducing the impact on staff time and possible legal costs.
It brings about better communication, helping to manage change during restructuring and redundancy processes; thereby improving understanding of decisions, minimising negative impacts and reducing the number of working days lost through industrial action.
The report concludes that “Where reps were released or seconded from their substantive posts the quality of representation and availability of reps was further improved because reps were able to focus further on their duties, prepare better for discussions with managers and build up relationships of respect trust with managers over time.”
Karen Jennings, UNISON assistant general secretary, said: “The government needs to look at the evidence instead of indulging in ideological attacks on unions. Cutting facility time does not make any sense for the public sector or for the taxpayer.
“Take this away and the government would have to pay for expensive consultants, and mediators – costing a fortune.
“It is staggering, that at a time when austerity has plunged the economy into double dip recession, Ministers are distracted by yet another attack on workplace representation”.
Research commissioned by the Department for Business in 2007 suggested that effective and engaged union representation saves the public purse between £170m and £400m a year by improving retention, training take-up, health and safety, and dispute resolution; and as much as £3.6bn a year through general productivity gains.
Read the full NatCen report herehttp://www.unison.org.uk/file/Value%20of%20Union%20Facility%20Time%20-%20FULL%20REPORT%20_FINAL_.pdf [pdf file]
Local campaigns
Across the country UNISON activists and members are facing job cuts and attacks on their terms and conditions. From London’s Barnet where the Tory-led council is threatening to outsource £1,000,000,000 of local services to North Tees and Hartlepool where the NHS trust is threatening to fire and rehire staff on worse terms and conditions, the need for a strong and effective union is greater than ever.
As UNISON general secretary Dave Prentis says: “Public services are under assault and our members, who provide those vital local services, face attacks on their jobs, pay and pensions.”
To meet this challenge, the union has set up a fighting fund to support activity to defend public services and our members’ jobs, pay and pensions.
The fund has two elements:
the General Political Fund is for support and campaigning activity; the General Fighting Fund is for supporting and organising activity.
“The fighting fund is there to help you to support our members when they need it, and to run campaigns against cuts and job losses at local level,” explains Mr Prentis.
“Please use it – there’s never been a more important time to show our members that the union is there for them.”