You should have received a letter outlining why the Branch are recommending that the offer be rejected along with a consultative paper that has a return date of Friday 3 September. Please use your vote and return the form to give the Branch Committee a clear mandate from you, our members, on whether to accept or reject the offer.
Unison believe that you should reject the offer as:-
- 1.5% is significantly less than the amount of increment that was due to be paid on 1 April 2010;
- the reduction to non-standard working week allowance will have a severe impact on the take home pay of some groups of staff; some will see reductions in pay of up to £1000 a year; those at the top of the scale will also see a reduction in their pay; those in detriment will face a bigger reduction in salary when the pay protection ceases in 2012;
- the reduction in Agency staff could have serious workload issues for some departments where agency staff have been used instaed of permanent staff;
- the removal of First Aid, Fire Warden and Workplace Disturance Allowances will not only affect those due an increment;
- Acting up Allowances and Higher Grade Duties Payments, ceasing these payments may mean greater reluctance to carry out higher grade duties to ensure service provision is maintained during periods of long-term sickness etc; those currently receiving this payment will see a reduction in pay;
- the commitment to revert to the increment scale under EP&M on 1 April 2011 has been withdrawn; and
- the Council have refused to give assurances of no compulsory redundancies.
Complete the form enclosed with your letter and return it to the freepost address as soon as possible. We need to know what you want us to do.
