Protest on pay this week

UNISON will be holding two days of pay protest this week as part of Fair Pay Fortnight.
Tuesday 1 April will see local government workers throughout England, Wales and Northern Ireland stage their latest day of protest on the day their pay settlement was due.
We are consulting our relevant local government workers, including those in schools, with a recommendation to reject the employers' 1% offer, and preparing for potential industrial action.
Thursday 3 April will see health workers staging protests over the government's refusal to give them even a 1% pay award recommended by the independent pay review body.

UNISON opens negotiations on HE payclaim 2014/2015

UNISON negotiators, alongside representatives of the other joint trade unions, today met with the Universities and College Employers Association, to start discussions on the 2014/15 pay round.

"A constructive exploration has taken place on the core components of the trade unions’ pay claim and the context for the HE employers," commented Donna Rowe-Merriman, UNISON senior national officer for education and children’s services. "Our positive dialogue will continue, and we will meet again formally on 15 April 2014.

HE pay claim (PDF)

Pay in education: key issues

Statement of Clarification

We wish to make clear that the UNISON text below contains an error. The University of Southampton is not a Living Wage Employer. The University has refused to ‘re-evaluate their position’ on the Living Wage before the resolution of the 2013/2014 pay claim. This dispute is not resolved as yet. 

Furthermore, the University of Southampton has clearly stated that they have no plans to strive to be a true Living Wage Employer. 

Although the University of Southampton has agreed to pay a supplement to the poorest employees of the University, this is not a Living Wage. It does not comply with the necessary conditions of a Living Wage which require increases to be included in the pension benefits package, over-time and holiday pay and not be ‘discretionary’, amongst other things. 

For these reasons your UNISON branch at University of Southampton is contacting UNISON head office to clarify the details.

Unions submit 2014-15 HE pay claim

Higher education unions have submitted a joint pay claim for 2014-15 to the national employers organisation, the Universities and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA). 

Headquarters of the UCEA

The claim, submitted by UNISON, UCU, Unite, GMB and EiS, covers two main areas: pay and pay related equality matters, which the unions want to negotiate concurrently.

The pay claim deals with the rising costs of living for higher education workers and is asking employers to respond to a growing real-terms pay gap that has widened in the last five years.

The unions also want the employers to look at addressing the gender pay gap and support for disabled workers, equality matters that have a direct impact on different groups of workers and lead to inequality.

UNISON, UCU and Unite have taken part in two exploratory meetings with UCEA, ahead of the 2014/15 pay round. One more meeting is scheduled before the first round of pay talks on 26 March.

Members will have received a pay increase for 2013/14 as the higher education employers advised universities to pay the 1% pay offer to staff in January 2014.

This payment was imposed by the employers and it has not settled our dispute, as 1% was a figure rejected by members, who voted to take strike action against it.

While the employers have not moved on the 1%, there have been some small gains.

Since the start of the dispute a number of employers - some of whom had previously refused - have agreed to introduce the living wage.

Bath University is the latest, alongside King's College and City University in London and Southampton and Cardiff Metropolitan Universities.

UNISON branches are continuing to urge those remaining universities that have not yet agreed to implement a living wage to do so.

To see the joint union pay claim click here

UNISON to consult members over meagre pay offer

UNISON is to consult more than 600,000 of its local government and school members over industrial action, following a meagre 1% pay offer made today.

Around 50,000 of the lowest-paid local government workers will receive a rise that is slightly above inflation, while the remainder of the workforce - around 90% - will receive just 1%.

The 1% offer from Local Government Employers will apply to more than one million workers including teaching assistants, planners, administrators, social workers and engineers.

For these workers, the offer represents a real terms cut in basic pay of almost 20% since the Coalition came to power, following three consecutive years of pay freezes followed by below inflation rises in 2013 and 2014.

Additional pay-related cuts at local level are now widespread across England, Wales and Northern Ireland. 

Volunteers at a food bank. Credit: Trussel Trust

UNISON's Head of Local Government Heather Wakefield said: "It is outrageous that the vast majority of local government workers have effectively been offered another pay cut.

"Although the long overdue modest rise for the lowest paid workers is welcome, this offer is another slap in the face for local government workers.

"Just this week we learned of the scandal of cabinet ministers happily approving pay rises of up to 36% for their own special advisors, while condemning thousands of other public sector workers to poverty pay.

"UNISON has seen a growing number of workers forced to rely on food banks and in-work benefits as a result of continuous pay freezes."

Daily Echo reports on campaigners' response to University 'wage boost'

The Daily Echo reported on campaigners' response to the University of Southampton's 'wage boost':

THE LOWEST paid staff at the University of Southampton are being given a wage boost in a bid to ease tensions during the ongoing industrial dispute.

The university has announced it is giving its lowest earning employees an increase of up to £740 per year to bring them in line with the so-called ‘living wage’ rate.

In total some 286 employees will benefit from the move.

It comes as industrial action by both lecturers and support staff continues.

A series of walkouts have been staged as staff strike in a national row over pay.

 Read the rest of the report here

Fair employment fortnight

In the U.K there are now more working households in poverty than those out of work. Its not just enough to campaign for more jobs, we need to make sure that those working hard are getting a fair deal. Join us on Saturday 22nd of March when we'll be talking to Southampton residents on how to seek fair employment.

Post by Fair Employment Fortnight.

A fortnight in Southampton from 17th-31st March to raise awareness of unfair work practices and providing training/advice on employment rights

Southampton Solidarity - your UoS Union news

The George Osborne Antidote websites.

Here are two websites that we think you might find interesting.  Give them a click...

Pulse of the Nation

What Recovery?

Great British Rip Off

2014 pay: untangling the jargon

The 2014 NHS pay announcement explained
What does the announcement mean?

The government has announced that staff in England will only receive a 1% pay increase if they are at the top of their pay band but this will be a "non-consolidated sum".

This means it will be given as an additional sum, and won't be added on to hourly rates. So it won't count for unsocial hours or overtime payments.

This means that a member at the top of band 5 would get a sum amounting to about £5 per week.

The announcement also included confirmation that – unless staff are prepared to give up incremental progression and enter talks about reducing other contractual terms – the same settlement will be made next year too.

So by 2017, NHS staff will have had six years worth of effective pay cuts.

In Scotland, there will be a 1% rise for all pay points, plus changes to bring bottom points above living wage.

Wales will mirror the overall cost, but will talk to the trade unions about how this will be applied.

We are still awaiting a formal announcement from Northern Ireland.

What did the review body recommend?

The Pay Review Body report has been published today (13 March) and calls for "a 1% increase to all Agenda for Change pay points from 1 April 2014" and "a 1% increase to the High Cost Area Supplement minima and maxima from 1 April 2014".

Is there any relief for the lowest paid?

No. UNISON had argued strongly that the bottom two pay points should be raised to meet the living wage.

The government has chosen to ignore this for NHS staff in England.

This is a sleight of hand which means pushing more people into reliance on in-work benefits.

What is UNISON going to do about this?

UNISON has not ruled any options out, saying that we will be talking to members about how we respond.

Some other unions have already announced that they will ballot.

Although strike action is not ruled out by UNISON, head of health Christina McAnea has emphasised that NHS staff never take strike action lightly - so our membership will be considering this carefully, along with other options.

The pay settlement, and the government contempt it shows towards NHS staff, is bound to be a hot topic at UNISON's health conference in Brighton from 14 to 16 April.

Tony Benn

                                                  Tony Benn. Photo: Steve Forrest

In 2010 Tony Benn spoke to UNISON InFocus, extolling the value of public services and explaining why he felt UNISON’s Million Voices campaign is so important.

"I think confidence is an essential ingredient of success. If you don’t have a clear sense of what you want to achieve you don’t make the right efforts to achieve it. That’s why I think UNISON’s million voices campaign is such a good idea, because it gives people a sense of their own strength and importance," says veteran statesman Tony Benn, who has signed up to the campaign.

Now in his 80s, the firebrand former Labour MP has lost none of his passion for social justice or his clarity about how that can be brought about. He sees public services as an essential component for a fair and equal society.

"A society should be founded on the twin ideas of, from each according to their ability, to each according to their need," he states, quoting Marx. "Public services meet public need, funded by taxation which is paid according to your capacity to pay. Without that you can’t have a fair society."

Mr Benn was elected to parliament in 1950, the youngest MP at the time and a contemporary of Nye Bevan. The NHS had come into being just two years before. Of all the public services, Mr Benn says, the NHS is closest to his heart.

"It’s almost prehistoric now, but I remember when the NHS came in," he remarks wryly. "I still carry around with me the leaflet issued by the Ministry of Health, which told us we had no cause to worry about ill-health any more, because it would all be paid for."

Mr Benn was the longest-serving MP in the history of the Labour Party, and was a minister in the Wilson and Callaghan governments of 1964-79. He lived through the "wilderness years" of the Thatcher government, and witnessed the rise of New Labour, before finally retiring in 2001 in order, he quipped, to "spend more time on politics."

[...]

"I used to be considered the most dangerous man in Britain. Now I seem to be becoming a national treasure," he remarks ruefully. But his uncompromising radicalism is still never far from the surface.

"You saw the whole question of health care being argued out in the US recently, and the hostility and controversy that it has caused," he observes. "It gives an indication of what a struggle lies behind all these gains. Now we take the NHS for granted. But without it you can’t have a civilised society."

Mr Benn hails from an aristocratic political dynasty; he is the grandson of two Liberal MPs, and his father William Wedgwood Benn was a Liberal MP who defected to Labour. But when his father died, Tony Benn challenged the law so that he would be able to renounce his hereditary peerage and continue to sit in the House of Commons. This led to the peerage act.

The dynasty continues - his son Hilary was Environment Secretary, his daughter Melissa is a political journalist and novelist, while his granddaughter Emily became the Labour candidate for East Worthing and Shoreham at the age of only 17. She was not elected in this year’s general election, though her uncle Hilary remains as MP for Leeds Central.

Though never a New Labour man, Mr Benn endorses Brown’s decision to intervene to save the banks, seeing it as a shift to a more Socialist position, and the recognition that the government had a duty to intervene to save the economy.

Sitting in the basement room that has been his study for over 30 years, he is surrounded by the clutter of a political life.

Political tributes and framed family photographs cluster the walls, papers and books proliferate on every surface, the desk is stacked with pots full of rubber bands, pencils, pens and even the surprising presence of a packet of Nicorette.

"Brown’s decision to intervene to save the economy is something the Conservatives don’t like, but it’s given him credibility with the people," he comments. "If the banks had collapsed, the collapse would have become total. And if you make a lot of cuts now you risk losing the advances you made by saving the banks. You risk going into a double dip depression."

Now that we have a new government in power, cuts will inevitably follow - something that Mr Benn deeply regrets.

"When people talk about cuts to public services they forget that people depend on them," he says, exasperated. "They’re just told about the cost, and that it’s more money for the state - as if the state was some great monster that does things to you. When in reality it’s the public services workers who look after you, and who are paid for by the community."

To UNISON members and public service workers facing an uncertain future, his message is clear. "The people who perform these services are of a very high quality and perform an important function. They deserve respect and decency," he says.

He sees interesting parallels in today’s crisis-ridden times with the immediate post-war period. "Then there was a simple realisation that if you could do anything you needed to meet the needs of war, you could do the same to meet the needs of peace. In wartime you don’t have a general saying, ‘I can’t bomb Berlin this month because I’ve exceeded my budget'."

But this is not advice that he expects David Cameron to follow. He has met our new prime minister, as he airily recalls. "I’d heard that he had been inspired to get involved in politics by reading my book Arguments for Democracy. So when we met I mentioned this to him, and asked if he’d also read my book, Arguments for Socialism. He said he had not."

And with one eyebrow raised, Tony Benn reaches for his pipe and lights it with a statesmanlike air, and a mischievous twinkle in his eye.

Essential cover before you get to work

Ligthhouse Finance surgery

Branch Secretary's Report

Living Wage - the University's recent statement

Yesterday you may have seen a statement issued by the University regarding recent negotiations on the Living Wage at the University of Southampton. 

We at UCU, UNISON and Unite wish to make clear that we in no way endorse this statement, and further, we believe that this statement thoroughly misrepresents the facts.  The issue of the Living Wage was first brought to the University's attention at the Joint Negotiating Committee on 18 October 2013, following an initial FOI request sent by Southampton Living Wage Campaign on 13 August 2013.  A paper was presented on this issue at the JNC which was fully endorsed by all three unions.

At this initial JNC discussion the University responded that they would re-evaluate their position on the Living Wage only after the resolution of the 2013/2014 pay claim.  In the months since, all three unions have consistently and visibly campaigned on the Living Wage and fair pay for the lowest-paid University staff, and it is only after these months of campaigning that the University has put forward this Living Wage supplement.

Throughout this dispute, all three union branches at this University have continued to negotiate on local issues, and at no point have we ceased cooperation due to the current national situation.  The University, in contrast, has repeatedly refused to negotiate formally on local concerns for the duration of the dispute, and has told us that they have no plans to strive to be a true Living Wage Employer.

The current statement on SUSSED does not acknowledge the contribution of unions and their members at this University in bringing this issue to the fore, nor does it accept responsibility for the University's own refusals to engage on this and other issues for the duration of the current pay dispute.

UCU, UNISON and Unite at the University of Southampton

Worth It

Why we're campaigning

We know that many of our members are lying awake at night worrying about their job or how to make ends meet while their pay is frozen but prices soar.

UNISON is helping by making sure pay stays at the top of the agenda, and continuing to campaign for better and fairer pay.

Struggling

It doesn't matter who your employer is or what kind of job you do: you're taking a hit as a result of cuts to public services and the government imposed pay squeeze. Coalition policies have resulted in working people losing huge amounts of money since 2010.

There's no relief any time soon. The 'short sharp shock' the government said we needed in 2010 is going to last until 2016 - and you are in the front line while the rich are still enjoying a cash bonanza.

Billionaire companies and millionaire bosses are using off-shoring and tax loopholes to avoid paying their way.

At the same time, they are squeezing your wages and asking you to do more for less.

So, we're not all in it together Mr Cameron. 

Under pressure

We all expect and deserve high quality public services.

But government funding cuts mean that budgets are under pressure at a time when people who are losing their jobs and benefits need public services the most.

Employers are responding to these funding cuts by reducing wages, and terms and conditions of employment.

Staff providing public services should be well trained, motivated and valued by their employers - because we all benefit from the high quality services that such staff provide.

The government is doing nothing to help people struggling under the weight of massive personal debt.  Their pay freeze, coupled with cuts to public services and jobs, has fuelled the rise in personal debt amongst our members.

Dave Prentis, UNISON general secretary

If public service workers are losing money and spending less, then the local economy suffers as people have less cash to spend in local shops and businesses.

This is not helping the economic recovery. 

We are all paying for poverty pay

And, while you're struggling to make ends meet, you are also picking up the tab for poverty pay.

As taxpayers, we continue to subsidise employers who pay low wages and whose staff have to rely on in-work benefits.

Bad employment behaviour, including zero hours contracts, wage cuts and pay freezes, cost us all.

We would all get better value for money if people were lifted out of poverty pay rather than receiving benefits.

UNISON is delivering for you

UNISON works to defend, maintain and improve pay structures and pay levels for all our members and is campaigning to end the public service pay freeze.
UNISON is successfully negotiating to get the living wage paid across the UK. We believe everyone should be paid a decent wage.

Our unique welfare charity There for You, offers financial planning and debt advice as well as financial assistance when times are tough.

And our members can save money by using our range of exclusive member discounts and deals to help make their money go further.

Britain needs a pay rise!

Join us for the TUC's first ever Fair Pay Fortnight, two weeks of campaigning around the country and online: http://fairpayfortnight.org/

Pay for ordinary Britons is falling. It's unfair and has dire consequences for our economy too. Share this graphic and find out more at http://britainneedsapayrise.org/http://britainneedsapayrise.org/

 

Croyde Bay Easter Holiday

*Based on sharing a hotel room. UNISON member rate, non-members add 15%. Ac­tivities subject to change. Can be withdrawn at any time. Subject to availability.  For full terms & conditions call 01271890890.