Category: UNISON Campaign

NSL is a private parking contractor delivering parking enforcement in Barnet.

Earlier this month UNISON held a meeting with NSL to discuss our LLW proposal and other terms & conditions issues.  UNISON said that in less than 18 months after transfer from the Council to NSL, almost 66% of staff had left.

At the meeting UNISON informed NSL that the majority of their members are now on NSL terms & conditions approximately 33% less than the ex Barnet staff who transferred over in May 2012.

UNISON members on NSL terms & condition are deeply unhappy with low pay and trying to keep up with the ever increasing cost of living. The only way members can try to deal with low pay is to try and get overtime, but to get overtime you need to demonstrate you issue enough parking tickets. Both NSL and Barnet Council will claim that there are no parking targets…..but the fact is if you don’t issue a lot of tickets on your regular shift you are highly unlikely to get overtime. You work it out….!

NSL told UNISON we had to go back to the Council for the decision as to whether NSL are allowed to pay the LLW.

Last week Richard Cornelius (Leader of Barnet Council), spoke about the decision of Barnet Council to apply a London Living Wage (LLW) rate of £8.80 per hour for all employees. He added:

“It is something we want to be part of,” he told The Press. “People should be paid enough to live on if they are going to work for us. It is something we have aspired to do for a long time.”

We contacted the Council and they said they would come back to us.

 

We are waiting……..

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