Inside
Packing us in like sardines: 'agile working' and the 'accommodation strategy' explained
Plectrums tweets & action
Plectrums, tweets & action: A festival of campaigning and skill sharing
City and County of Swansea
Review TUC March: All out for 20th October News of gold medals have filled the headlines recently but they will soon return to a bitter reality. The Bank of England recently sharply downgraded its forecast for economic growth - to 0 percent. Industrial output is falling, and over a million young people are on the dole. In other words, austerity isn’t working. The Tories have cut, cut and cut again, and the economy is showing the strain. The only “boost” for the economy has come from the £9 billion paid back to customers mis-sold payment protection insurance (PPI) by dodgy bankers. While praising the Paralympics athletes the government is targeting disabled people with more attacks on benefits as they shut the Remploy factories, including the one in Swansea. Meanwhile the coalition is under real strain with Cameron and Clegg split over Lords reform. The Lib- Dems will now vote against the electoral boundary changes that the
Y A P . . . N O I T A S I T A V I R P . . ➥ . S T U C N O I S S E S I R CUTS...PEN E C I R P . . . S T U C G N I D N E P S F E N E B . . MPLOYMENT... . . S E S I R E C I R P . . . S N O I T I D O . R E G N O ACKS ON CON L K R O W . . . S T U C N O I S N E P E R C X PAY CUTS... A T . . . S T U C G N I D N E P S . . . T N E M U S O L C UNEMPLOY L O O H C S . . . . . . S N O I T I D N O C N CKS O back page
Public Service Not Private Profit
September 2012
Why you should be demonstrating on Oct 20th Five years of economic crisis have pushed many ordinary people into poverty and despair. But bankers have seen their wealth soar. Governments have stolen trillions of pounds from us to throw at the banks. They say this is to keep “the system” going but we are not getting any benefits from this. What’s really happened is a massive transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich. The amount of money going towards ordinary people in Britain, for example, has plummeted. It was bankers building up unsustainable debt bubbles and trading in debt that sparked the crisis in the first place. Even before the recession less money was going to workers. Britain’s gross domestic product (GDP), the total economic output of the country, rose by 11 percent between 2003 and 2008. Yet average wages stayed the same. And disposable income, the money left after tax, fell. Just 12p out of every £1 created in Britain's economy goes to the wages of the poorest half of workers. This figure has fallen by a quarter over the past 30 years. Wages have stagnated since 2003—before the current recession began. This explains why many people turned to debt in the runup to the crisis to try and maintain their standard of living. The TUC says that the total wage bill represented 58 percent of GDP in 1978. by 2011 it had dropped to 54 percent. Had the percentage stayed the same, workers would have taken home £60 billion more last year. But, this isn’t just about the banks. We live in a world where the top priority is for the rich to get richer— whatever the cost.The Tories, like governments across the world, are determined to make ordinary people pay for them. The only way out for ordinary people is to build the biggest resistance possible—starting with October 20th.
The European Health & Safety Week 2012 starts on the 22nd October. The aim is to raise awareness and promote activities to make work safer and healthier. This year's European theme is "Working Together for Risk Prevention". The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and councils are suffering severe cut backs. Employers are being advised to make good use of their own internal experts - the local union safety reps and the workers themselves Workers and safety reps may identify hazards, risks, and potential solutions, or failings in current safety measures; that have otherwise gone unnoticed. Workplaces with genuine joint working on health and safety are better at identifying, managing, and finding solutions to workplace hazards. We are organising in the workplace around Health and Safety and our branch Safety reps are performing workplace inspections. To date many reps have completed their inspections , and are involved in their department’s safety committees. UNISON members are safer and healthier in workplaces with active safety reps. If you would like to discuss a safety issue please contact me directly or your workplace safety rep. Keep Safe
UNISON Health & Safety Officer
Chris Cooze
Tel: 01792 635271 Mob: 07825 287218
Workers are poorer today than they were a decade ago. That’s the shocking finding from an office for National Statistics (ONS) report recently.
and that workers borrow to get to their next pay day. Some 30 percent have cut back on spending on food to pay for other essentials. People are cutting back on minor expenses too.
It found that people in Britain had, on average, a disposable income of £3,640 for the first quarter of this year. Disposable income is the amount of money people have left after paying their personal taxes.
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has found that people have reduced the amounts they spend on Christmas and birthday presents. On average they now spend £15 on a present for their partner today, compared to £50 in 2008.
In 2003 the equivalent figure was £3,645. So people today have less to spend than they did during any quarter since 2003. The figures show how the recession has hammered ordinary people. Wage cuts and freezes make it increasingly hard for people to make ends meet. Meanwhile prices have shot up— by 3.7 percent in 2010 and by 4.5 percent in 2011. This has pushed up the cost of living, which hits the poorest the hardest. Household expenditure rose by 4.6 percent in 2010 and again by a further 3.2 percent in 2011. So it’s little wonder that more and more people can’t survive on their wages alone. The Unite union has found that some 67 percent of workers are borrowing money to pay for necessities such as food and rent. Its research found that wages tend to run out after 21 days of the month—
An increasing number of parents take their children swimming once a month instead of once a week. They also use cheaper “stay and play” sessions instead of paying for access to soft play centres. Pensioners look for “early bird” and “two for one” deals to spend less on eating out. Families allocated £20 a month for eating out or takeaway meals in 2008. Today they will spend £30 around three times a year—a drop of nearly two thirds. “The gap between the incomes and needs of the worstoff households is widening, especially for families with children,” the Rowntree report says. It warns that the incomes of the poorest are so stretched that they are increasingly vulnerable to even small cuts in benefits or services.
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'Hot desking','agile working'...and stress
As the email admits, the reason for this is to ‘save money’ and ‘maximise efficiencies’, obviously in the wider context of the austerity cuts being implemented by the government and local councils. This will also mean the closure of many satellite offices, in some cases decreasing public access to front-line staff who provide services. Packing staff into the major buildings like sardines and reducing public access is bad enough. However the email also revealed that the ‘fundamental change...will be a greater focus on desk sharing. The strategy will concentrate on maximum occupation...by implementing a desk ratio of four desks to every five members of staff.’ The details of this ‘shared desk working policy’ - otherwise known
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Hot-desking was a nightmare and added to the stress of an already stressful job. There were many practical issues about finding your stuff, constantly changing location was difficult for staff with disabilities and not knowing if you even had a desk to work at definitely affected the well-being of staff and increased staff conflict. No wonder our team ended it. Ruth Hession, Social Inclusion Unit
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Unison members may be forgiven for missing a recent email, excitingly entitled ‘staff accommodation update’. This described the council’s plans to concentrate more staff in the Civic Centre and Guildhall and reduce the number of floors the council rents in the Oldway Centre.
Hot-desking increases stress at work, leading to more sickness.
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skill sharing
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/16th SEPTEMBER 2012
p://plectrumstweetsaction.wordpress.com/ p://plectrumstweetsaction.wordpress.com/
as ‘hot-desking’ - have yet to be finalised and has not been agreed with the trade unions. And yet, in practice, whenever there are changes to staff working arrangements it is already being robotically applied. This involves no consultation with staff, scant regard for, or understanding of, the different nature of work in different areas, and apparently no risk-assessments for the staff involved. Hot-desking might be spun positively to staff as part of ‘flexible working’ or ‘agile working’. Not all of these wider changes are necessarily negative, for example if staff choose to work from home. However many of us spend a huge proportion of our waking time, if not the majority, in work. Having a desk to work at is not an unnecessary luxury and is a simple requirement to do our jobs. As the majority of us work in open-plan offices your desk is part of our personal workspace, usually the only part, and the lack of this can add considerably to workplace stress and increase the likelihood of sickness-absence. Coming into work in the morning not knowing where you are going to sit, having to move reference books, workplace materials and equipment around, and adjusting the work-station to your requirements when - and if - you have a desk will decrease productivity and morale, and increase stress and staff conflict. Inevitably it will also have an impact on when members choose to come into work and choose to leave, in practice having to juggle work, health and caring responsibilities with a calculation of whether you have a desk or not to work at. It might seem simple but in fact is very valuable to being able to work in a reasonable environment. The council may maintain any changes may not be that negative in its impact on staff. Some members have already asked whether such a policy will be implemented for senior managers, who will probably retain their own offices, as well as their own desks. Workplace space is an important health and safety issue (http://www.unison.org.uk/safety/index.asp) and there are legal minimum requirements that employers have to abide by. However the legislation is old and does not take account that many modern workers need more space due to us each having a pc in our workstations. Most importantly simply not breaking the law on workplacespace does not mean that workers are in a comfortable and appropriate working environment. Similarly stress is also an important health and safety issue (http://www.tuc.org.uk/workplace/index.cfm? mins=173&minors=124&majorsubjectID=2 and http:// www.thompsonstradeunionlaw.co.uk/information-andresources/stress-at-work.htm#stress_at_work) and employers are legally required to risk assess for this. Until a time that such a policy is agreed with the tradeunions members are advised not to cooperate with any changes around accommodation and hot-desking. Staff and trade unions should be consulted about any changes, the workplace and staff-needs risk-assessed and workplace-reps involved in the process. If staff are faced with such changes they should place all of their objections in writing to management, contact Unison for our health and safety representatives to assess the workplace and to be involved in negotiations.
What's happening on Job Evaluation?
continued from front page Tories need to help them win a majority at the next election. The Con-Dems may be nasty but they are weak. A determined fight could break the government’s austerity drive. That’s what we need. There is a way forward. On 20 October the TUC has called for a mass protest against austerity. Everyone union reps and lay members - have to go all out to build that demo and to be on the coaches on Oct 20th. Up to a million people could march against the cuts. The demonstration can provide a focus for everyone who wants to fight low pay, privatisation and all service cuts. It could be the start of a “hot autumn” that can scupper this rotten government who only look after themselves. Cameron and Co are bullies and as we all know there’s only one thing to do with bullies - and that’s stand up to them.
YOUR UNION
For details of the coaches for Oct 20th please contact the branch office
If we take 2001 as the starting point for negotiations on job evaluation there have been 5 Chief Executives (including 2 Acting Chief Executives), 3 general and local elections, 3 Olympic Games.......you get the drift. We are now , without question, entering into the final phase (discounting appeals of course) of this laborious process.
difference in the cost between the 2 models with the trade union model being more expensive but not massively so. Much work has been done via a software company and further work is scheduled for the 31st August 2012 with a view to reducing the cost differences between the 2 models.
In any job evaluation exercise there will be groups of workers You will be aware that as well who receive an increase in pay, as the pay and grading exercise some who remain on the same (job evaluation) the Authority pay and, unfortunately, some has proposed changes to our who suffer a reduction in pay. terms and conditions and have One of the ways of mitigating amended or introduced over 50 losses is by "enriching" jobs HR policies in conjunction with across the Authority via trade unions. In terms of job agreement of a new job evaluation the Authority has a description which, along with proposed pay model and trade increased duties and unions have a different responsibilities, will improve proposed pay model. There is a service levels for the citizens of
Swansea and will allow our members a reasonable wage. There are still some discussions to take place on pay protection, the job family appeal process, Christmas shutdown (though this may not be possible this year owing to the logistics of organising the shutdown, particularly in those workplaces which would need to stay open) and some other areas such as shift allowances and registration fees. Finally, when the proposed outcome is known, the package will be examined by national officers of the respective trade unions to ensure the laws on equality are adhered to. The Equality Impact Assessment, which is nearly complete, will clearly aid this process.
Changes to Local Government Pension Scheme accepted UNISON members across England and Wales have voted 90.2% in favour of accepting the proposed changes to the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS). The union led the negotiations, which resulted in proposals to maintain the current contribution levels for 90% of LGPS members, introduce a 50/50 ‘low cost’ scheme for the low paid, and move from a final salary to a career average scheme. Commenting on the ballot result, UNISON Head of Local Government Heather Wakefield said:
Contact us:
‘These were tough negotiations, but with a focus on the majority of members who earn less than £21,000 a year, we have ensured that current LGPS members can afford to remain in the scheme and those who could not afford to do so to date can now join via the 50/50 option. This is vital for many of our members who have suffered a decline in earnings as a result of the Coalition’s pay freeze policies. Contributions are now on a fairer ‘progressive’ basis. We will continue to campaign with all of the union, through the TUC, against the proposals to increase the state retirement age.
Unison Office The Guildhall Swansea SA1 4PE 01792 635271
unison@swansea.gov.uk
Branch Secretary: Mike Davies / Asst. Secretary: Ian Alexander Unison has over 100 trained union reps throughout the council, schools and FE colleges. We will advise, support and represent you collectively and individually on issues from sickness, disciplinaries to legal matters inside and outside the workplace. If you need advice or representation please contact the Senior Steward(s) for your department below or go to your workplace steward. Alternatively please contact the branch office. Environment Ian Alexander - 07584 505793 Tony Dearden - 07971 121533 Pat Lopez - 07584 505792 Social Services Alison Bell - 07941 757853 Bill Williams - 07557 560092 Resources Gareth Parry - 07584 341240
Sports & Social website: www.suss.me.uk
Education Chris Bell - 07967 551025 Karen Verallo - 07771 922985 Regeneration/Housing John Llewellyn - 07557 560093 Roger Owen - 07941819229 Gower College Ron Job - 07963 454041
www.unison.co.uk
This newsletter is produced by the City and County of Swansea Unison Branch. Any letters, comments or suggestions for articles should be posted to the branch address or emailed to Unison@swansea.gov.uk. Correspondence is not guaranteed to be published and contents may not necessarily reflect Unison policy.