Category: Local

For the past nine months all the trade unions have had meetings with senior officers to try and avoid this attack on our right to organise and represent members. In these meetings we have been informed that senior managers have agreed to this proposal. This decision takes place before the Council begins to consult on ripping up staff terms & conditions, allowances, and take workers out of National Pay bargaining. Last week UNISON along with the other Council trade unions attended a last ditch meeting with the Leader of Barnet Council to try and avert this attack. Unfortunately our discussions were unsuccessful.

Stop gagging local unions in Barnet Council. Petition

 

Dear Mr Cornelius

It is clear from your own website that Barnet Council has already embarked on a radical outsourcing policy which has had a significant impact on former and current Council workers. Surely you must recognise the importance for staff to be represented and supported by a trade union?

Facility Time is good practice and is a means by which trade unions can carry out what are often demanding and complex roles which includes provision of advice to members, formal representation of members in grievance and disciplinary hearings and negotiating with managers over terms and conditions, outsourcing, restructures, cuts to services.

In 2007, the then Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR, now BIS – Department for Business Innovation and Skills) conducted a review of facilities and facility time available to workplace representatives. The review found the following in unionised workplaces:

· Dismissal rates were lower

· Voluntary exit rates were lower

· Employment tribunal cases are lower

· Workplace-related injuries were lower

· All of the above generated savings up to £977m for the employer.

As Leader of Barnet Council I am asking that you cease your proposal to reduce the facility time pot to zero for the two local trade unions.

Why is it important?

The two local trade unions, UNISON & GMB, have been subject to both personal and political attacks by Conservative controlled Barnet Council in relation to facility time. On 1 April 2014 the Council are ceasing all of the facility time for both trade unions. The facility time pot has already been cut by 66% to date. This is the final act of what has been a sustained attack on the local trade unions for daring to question the wisdom of the One Barnet mass outsourcing of Council services. Barnet Council has been promoting the ideology ‘Public Bad Private Good’ as the solution to ‘Austerity’ with the help of expensive consultants (Consultancy Agilisys estimated costs to date close to £8million this does not include £millions spent on legal advice). First it was Future Shape then EasyCouncil, then One Barnet and now it is being promoted as the Commissioning Council. Whatever the name of this policy the human cost has meant redundancies and significant attacks on terms & conditions for those staff outsourced to contractors such as Your Choice Barnet, NSL, Capita and Barnet Homes.

Here is an animation explaining what is happening in Barnet http://youtu.be/o6I9kP6nCMg

The Trade Unions view this attempt to gag the unions as a form of de-recognition as it is clearly designed to undermine our ability to represent and organise across a number of employers all of whom currently contribute to a facility time pot of money. Once again Barnet Council in its drive to outsource all of its remaining council services also wants to be first to smash the ability of trade unions to be able to support, represent and defend hard working staff.

To Sign Petition click on link below 

https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/stop-gagging-local-unions-in-barnet-council

Please note: Barnet’s Appeal was not about re-opening the case itself but about the number of days compensation to be paid to staff affected by the Council’s breaches of TUPE and TULCRA 1992. You can read the original judgement here

The Case made by Barnet Council was that there had been a ‘error in law’ by the employment tribunal. Barnet Council in the Appeal claimed the original judgement may mean paying staff a total of £850,000.

The key to this claim can be found in the original judgement by the Tribunal in December 2012. Specifically the following paragraph of this judgement was critical to the decision to uphold the Appeal.

Paragraph 8.5 which states

“For these purposes we consider the failure together for all matters raised (the redundancies and the two transfers) before deciding what it is appropriate to award. In general terms, we accept that we have to consider what is just and equitable. The guidance contained within Susie Radin is quite clear and we must consider the seriousness of the breach. We also accept that Susie Radin indicates that we start with a maximum only where there is no consultation and that cannot be said to be the position in this case. Having said that, we are not quite sure where we should start if we do not start with the maximum and work down. It was not put to us by either of the respondents’ representatives that there was a better place to start and given that, in our view, this is a relatively serious failure, we do indeed start with the maximum.”

Counsel acting on behalf of Barnet argued that the sentences highlighted in yellow provided grounds to say there had been an “error in law”.

There was a long discussion about how to calculate the starting point for the award i.e. should the Tribunal have started from zero days and worked upwards or should they stayed at maximum award (90 days) and work backwards, or should they have started in the middle.

In the end the Appeal Tribunal agreed that technically there had been an “error in law’ and therefore upheld Barnet’s appeal.

This presented the Appeal Tribunal with three options:

1. Make a decision on what the right award (how many days pay) should be; or

2. Refer the case back to a different Employment Tribunal to look at the case again; or

3. Refer the case back to the original Employment Tribunal.

Counsel acting on behalf of Barnet Council argued for the following:

1. Appeal Tribunal to give a decision on the award; or

2. Refer to a different Tribunal

They did not want the decision to go back to the same Employment Tribunal because they claimed that original Judges would be unlikely to change their original decision about the number of days to be paid out to staff.

The Appeal Tribunal decided to refer the matter back to the original Employment Tribunal.

We do not have the date of when the original Employment Tribunal will make a decision.

Question Time (a local version) comes to Barnet

Barnet Alliance have organised four Question Time Events across the London Borough of Barnet

Barnet UNISON is encouraging all of our members to go along to all of these meetings and ask questions of these local politicians who will be standing for election in May this year.

The first of the four meetings is on

Wednesday, 22 January 2014, 7-9pm, doors open 6.30, The Larches, 1 Rectory Lane, HA8 7LF

For details of all these meetings click here

Time to hold local politicians in Barnet to account?

Barnet Alliance have organised four “Question Time Events” across the London Borough of Barnet.

Barnet UNISON is encouraging all of our members to go along to all of these meetings and ask questions of local politicians who will be standing for election in May this year.

Do you have a question about why your job was privatised?

Do you have a question about why your job has been made redundant?

Do you have a question as to why your in house service was not considered as an option to outsourcing?

Do you have a question as to why the Council is attacking your right to belong to a trade union?

Do you have a question you want to ask all of the politicians taking part?

If so then make sure you go along to all of the Question Time events

The first of the four meetings is on

EDGWARE, Wednesday, 22 January 2014, 7-9pm, doors open 6.30, The Larches, 1 Rectory Lane, HA8 7LF

EAST BARNET, Monday, 17 February 2014, 7-9pm, doors open 6.45, St James’ Church, 71 East Barnet Road, EN4 8RN

WEST HENDON, Tuesday, 18 March 2014, 7-9pm, doors open 6.30, Barnet Multicultural Centre,  Road, NW4 3TA

NORTH FINCHLEY,Thursday, 10 April 2014, 7-9pm, doors open 6.30,Greek Cypriot Centre,2 Britannia Road, N12 9RU

For details of all these meetings click here

Capita 350 local jobs going going …..

Would you take a 50% cut in pay, lose your pension and move three hundred miles?

That is what is facing former Barnet Council workers in Barnet if they want to follow the jobs Capita plans to transfer to Belfast, Carlisle, Blackburn, and Southampton among some of the various Capita locations.

As part of our statutory consultation with Capita, UNISON has been faced with the task of trying to find ways of mitigating the redundancies. As part of this process Capita as the employer has a responsibility to try and reach an agreement with the trade unions. At the start of consultation UNISON asked Capita to reconsider their business model but this was rejected and UNISON was asked to come up with an alternative.

But when you consider that Capita proposal is to make a 45% operational saving, export hundreds of jobs across the UK and employ staff on low wages and a poor pension it became clear that there was no chance for locally delivered service was going to be able to compete. Who could live in London on those terms & conditions? So far only a few staff have expressed an interest in moving with the job to some of the propose Capita locations. Secondly, because of commercially sensitive information it was impossible for Capita to be able to share the requisite information to enable a competitive alternative to be proposed. Lastly, Capita along with BT had a team of experts working on their proposed bid over a 18 month period which must have cost at least £1million something our UNISON branch does not have at its disposal.

“BUT where does this all end?”

George Osborne has announced even bigger cuts to public services, what does this mean for local jobs even in the north. Birmingham Council are facing enormous cuts and there is pressure on the long standing Capita Contract (service Birmingham). There is talk of terminating the contract and pressure for the Council to follow Barnet Councils lead and publish the contract for public scrutiny. What I suspect will happen is the contract will be re-negotiated and perhaps services exported out of Birmingham to another country in Europe of perhaps Asia.

“How many jobs can be exported out of the UK?”

I think the reliance on outsourcing services has become so dominant that public bodies are going to be held to ransom as the pressure to deliver savings creates the scenario whereby the private sector offer “off shoring” as the way to deliver more savings.

Back to Barnet.

 

It does look like that there are going to be significant redundancies

Why is Barnet Homes not helping keep jobs in Barnet?

When the contract was awarded to Capita back in November 2012 and the details of the Capita proposals were made public, UNISON recognised all efforts must be made to reduce the number of redundancies as the jobs were exported to Belfast, Carlisle, Blackburn, and Southampton among some of the various Capita locations.

When Capita opened formal consultation on Monday 7 October 2013 outlining their proposals UNISON wrote to the Council. UNISON asked for all vacant jobs across Barnet Council, Barnet Homes and Your Choice be made available to any former Council Capita staff at risk of redundancy in order to try and reduce the numbers of redundancies. This would also keep the redundancy costs down and future benefit costs as a result of being made redundant.

Capita thought it was a sensible proposal but it was clearly not within their power to grant this request.

I am both angry and disappointed to report that whilst the Council have made posts available, Barnet Homes are currently refusing to make any vacant posts available to staff at risk of redundancy.

“What have UNISON done?”

When the position of Barnet Homes was revealed UNISON attempted to resolve this quickly both with Barnet Homes and later with Barnet Council.

UNISON again noting the large numbers of staff due to start receiving redundancy letters straight after Christmas, requested that this matter be expedited and commonsense applied.

I have report that we are still waiting for a decision.

It is both shocking and disappointing that Barnet Council does not have any power over organisations in which they own 100%. How can it be right that public body owned by the council would not want to work with the council to avoid making staff and their families redundant?

UNISON will be writing again to the Leader of Barnet Council.

Why is Barnet Council not helping keep jobs in Barnet?

UNISON has had further discussions with Capita about a proposal which could mean keeping jobs in Barnet; which would mean less staff being made redundant.

BUT and there is a big but.

For this project to get off the ground Barnet Council need to agree to Capita being able to hold on to the redundancy payments already provided by the Council.

“Why do we need Barnet Council to agree to this?”

The simple answer is that it is all in the Capita contract. As part of the Capita bid for the contract; the Council agreed to give Capita the redundancy money for any staff made redundant as a result of Capita winning the contract. I imagine that Barnet Council would have known the number of job losses in order to agree how much they would have to give Capita. We have been told it is approximately £5million which is quite a sum of money and a lot of staff losing their jobs.

However as a result of the delay in the transfer to Capita a large number of staff have already left which means there is going to be a substantial pot of money left over.

“What happens to the money?”

In the Capita contract it states Capita have to give Barnet Council a rebate on any unspent money after 5 years.

“So what is stopping the proposal to keep jobs in Barnet?”

For Capita to agree to the job creation proposal they need Barnet Council to allow Capita to hold onto some of the ‘redundancy money’ in case the new service is unsuccessful and the staff are made redundant. Unless Barnet Council agree it is highly unlikely Capita will proceed with this proposal.

“What have UNISON done?”

We wrote to senior officers of the council on several occasions pointing out the implications for staff and their families and requesting a speedy response preferably before Christmas (staff are due to be issued redundancy letters in the first week of January 2014 hence our urgency). Unfortunately the response was slow but a promise of a response on 20 December was made.

Unfortunately this deadline has been and gone. It does feel like the senior officers have not recognised the urgency and importance of this simple decision.

UNISON will press again for a response.

UNISON wrote the Leader of the Council on two occasions pointing out the promises made by fellow councillors that the utmost would be done to help loyal staff in these difficult times.

Unfortunately UNISON did not receive an acknowledgment or a reply to these requests.

UNISON will send another reminder to the Leader of Barnet Council asking for a response.