Search Results for: one barnet

Coronavirus Update “underlying medical conditions”. 17 March 2020

Austerity, H&S, Health and Safety, Local, Uncategorised

“I have been told that I have an underlying medical condition and I must leave work and self-isolate for 12 weeks.”

“What do they mean by self-isolation?”

  • Those who are vulnerable* should stay off work for 12 weeks (not in self isolation but to avoid risk of infection)
  • Self-isolation means staying indoors and not even shopping for food or essentials. Further details are here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-stay-at-home-guidance
  • All unnecessary social contact and travel should be avoided by everyone, including pubs, restaurants, theatres etc.

 “What do they mean by underlying conditions?”

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-guidance-on-social-distancing-and-for-vulnerable-people/guidance-on-social-distancing-for-everyone-in-the-uk-and-protecting-older-people-and-vulnerable-adults

  • aged 70 or older (regardless of medical conditions)
  • under 70 with an underlying health condition listed below (i.e. anyone instructed to get a flu jab as an adult each year on medical grounds):
  • chronic (long-term) respiratory diseases, such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), emphysema or bronchitis
  • chronic heart disease, such as heart failure
  • chronic kidney disease
  • chronic liver disease, such as hepatitis
  • chronic neurological conditions, such as Parkinson’s disease, motor neurone disease, multiple sclerosis (MS), a learning disability or cerebral palsy
  • diabetes
  • problems with your spleen – for example, sickle cell disease or if you have had your spleen removed
  • a weakened immune system as the result of conditions such as HIV and AIDS, or medicines such as steroid tablets or chemotherapy
  • being seriously overweight (a body mass index (BMI) of 40 or above)
  • those who are pregnant

Some clinical conditions put people at even higher risk of severe illness from COVID-19. If you are in this category, next week the NHS in England will directly contact you with advice the more stringent measures you should take in order to keep yourself and others safe. For now, you should rigorously follow the social distancing advice in full, outlined below.

People falling into this group are those who may be at particular risk due to complex health problems such as:

  • people who have received an organ transplant and remain on ongoing immunosuppression medication
  • people with cancer who are undergoing active chemotherapy or radiotherapy
  • people with cancers of the blood or bone marrow such as leukaemia who are at any stage of treatment
  • people with severe chest conditions such as cystic fibrosis or severe asthma (requiring hospital admissions or courses of steroid tablets)
  • people with severe diseases of body systems, such as severe kidney disease (dialysis)

Barnet UNISON advice:

If you have any of the above conditions please contact your employer. Barnet Council have confirmed that all of their staff and agency workers who are at risk and will need to self-isolate will receive full pay. If you have any problems please contact the Barnet UNISON office at

contactus@barnetunison.org.uk

Term Time Pay Drop-in meetings

Austerity, Local, National, News, Schools, Solidarity, UNISON Campaign

Barnet UNISON is hosting drop-in sessions for our members working in schools which have Term Time Pay issues.

Drop-in sessions will take place on

  1. Monday 17th February 11- 3pm
  2. Tuesday 18th 11 -3pm
  3. Thursday 20th February from 11- 3

Drop-in sessions are held at the Barnet UNISON office, Barnet House, 1255 High Road, Whetstone, London N20 0EJ

Members please note you will need the following information.

Your monthly take home pay figures, payroll number which is on your pay slip, your membership number.

End.

Save our Catering workers

Austerity, Local, News, Solidarity, UNISON Campaign

We the undersigned, wish to add our support for Barnet UNISON’s request to the Barnet Council Chief Executive to bring the ISS Catering workers based in the Atrium in North London Business Park (NLBP) back in-house in order they can run a Council owned staff café in the new £55 million Colindale Office.

 

Sign petition here http://chng.it/gNCjP62Q

 

***** Please note there is currently no staff cafe facility in the new Colindale office building.

 

Background:

On 1 April 2016 Barnet Council outsourced their Catering Service to Cambridge Education who are a subsidiary of global giant Mott MacDonald.

Barnet UNISON reached an agreement with Barnet Council that ensured the contract included a provision that no staff could be employed on less than the London Living Wage (LLW).

Cambridge Education sub-contracted the Catering service to another global giant ISS who employed all the Catering workers.

However, Barnet UNISON and the Atrium Catering workers were unaware that the contract between ISS and Cambridge Education did not include the provision of a staff café in the soon to be built £55 million Council Office in Colindale.

In December 2019 Barnet Council informed Barnet UNISON that they had failed to secure an alternative provider to deliver a staff café in Colindale office.

On Monday 27 January 2020 ISS began redundancy one to one meetings for their staff working in the staff canteen in NLBP.

On 1 April 2020 the LLW changes from £10.55 (for a 36 hour week the annual salary would be £19,979) to £10.75 an hour.

*** In the likely event that our proposal is not implemented and the redundancies are carried out, Barnet UNISON is calling on all council staff to try and visit the staff canteen in NLBP on Friday 27 March 2020 between 12 and 1.30 pm for a Solidarity and Thank you meal with our ISS catering workers.

 

It’s Your Wages. This is what we are doing.

Austerity, Local, National, News, Schools, Solidarity, UNISON Campaign

On Wednesday 15th January 2020 UNISON lodged collective grievances against 52 Barnet Schools to ensure we protect claims on behalf of all of over 500 UNISON members working in those schools.

Three things that need to be done for YOU.

  1. The way your employer calculates YOUR Pay needs to be changed in order that you are paid correctly.
  2. You have been underpaid for years. These are your wages that you have worked for and it is your right that your employer should pay you correctly.
  3. If you are in the Pension Scheme your Pension is wrong and you need to be compensated.

IMPORTANT ADVICE:

Barnet UNISON has an organiser called Nadia who will be contacting you to set up a meeting to explain what happens next.

If you want to speak to Nadia please contact the branch on 0208 359 2088 or email contactus@barnetunison.org.uk

Term Time Pay Update Meeting

On Tuesday 25 February 2020 5.15 pm, Barnet House, 1255 High Road, Whetstone N20 0EJ after the Barnet UNISON Annual General Meeting there will be an update for all of our members on the claim.

Please come along.

Merry Christmas? Not a chance! Redundancies on the horizon

Austerity, Local, News, Solidarity, UNISON Campaign

The last big outsourcing took place in April 2016.

Education and Catering Services were outsourced to Mott MacDonald who transferred the services to Cambridge Education. Cambridge Education sub-contracted Catering Services to global giant ISS.

At the time of the award of the contract it was very clear that the Council was moving all of its staff, who would need a café based inside, to the new £50 plus million building in Colindale.

What happened next is yet another example of how you lose all control by outsourcing.

For some reason Barnet Council said it did not want the same service it had in the Atrium and wanted to hand it over to a franchise……Costa Coffee. ISS was to sort out the franchise and run a Costa Coffee inside the new Colindale office.

Who or why this was agreed we don’t know – it’s important to note there are loads of Costa Coffee shops around Colindale.

All our members were told by ISS that they would receive Costa Coffee training in readiness for the move to Colindale in June 2019.

That’s right, June 2019.

Then it all went quiet, staff started moving and the ‘white elephant’ – the lack of a café – became more apparent as the building started to fill up.

‘It would all be ready after the summer.’

No, it wasn’t, and the news was worse.

ISS was not going to provide a service.

Barnet UNISON said “let’s run an in-house service”. 

We were ignored.

Barnet Council went out to find a contractor to run a café in the Colindale office.

Bad news for our members

Barnet Council has failed to secure a contractor to run a café in Colindale office. We have been told that the Council is going back out to see if it can secure a contractor but time is running out. The Atrium service will close March 2020. This will give very little time to find another employer and then TUPE transfer staff to the new employer.

Yesterday Barnet UNISON had the unpleasant task of speaking to all of our members in the Atrium café in North London Business Park (also known as the staff canteen) to alert them to the very real risk of redundancy due to this news.

Outsourcing v In-House

Outsourcing has failed our low paid members and it has failed the staff who work in Colindale. The importance of a staff canteen is that it provides a space away from your desk to de-stress and meet up with work colleagues. It’s a space that helps promote mental health and wellbeing.

Barnet UNISON has formally written to Cambridge Education to hold ISS to the contract and ask them to provide a café service in NLBP.

What we do know is that if Catering had remained in-house there would already be a café in Colindale, just as it was ready when all the staff finally moved to North London Business Park.

Solidarity for our UNISON Atrium members.

More on this later in 2020.

End.

 

 

 

Pay our Bin workers the proper rate of Pay over the Christmas and New Year

Austerity, Local, News, UNISON Campaign

Barnet Bin workers are some of the lowest paid staff in the Council, therefore at this time of the year UNISON had hoped that the Council would want to recognise them for the vital work they do under what have been very challenging circumstances over the last 12 months.

Unfortunately the Council have misjudged the mood of the workforce.

After a year of trying to make sense of the bin collection debacle and now facing further disruption because our two year old depot is sliding down the hill workers are being told they are to be treated differently to other higher paid council workers.

The latest management offer to workers is in relation to work over two weekends over Christmas and New Year, it falls far short of what they should be paid.

All UNISON is asking for is for the staff to be treated the same as many other council workers who work weekends.

The Council has agreed many local agreements that have seen other Council workers receive time and half for working on a Saturday and double time for working on a Sunday.

Sadly, management is refusing to pay the Street Scene workforce at the same rate as other Council workers.

UNISON believes this is discriminatory against manual workers and sends a message that the Council does not care about the lowest paid workforce.

This is why UNISON is meeting with the workforce on Wednesday 4 December 2019.

 

 

BREAKING NEWS: School Support Staff. What we are recommending

Austerity, Local, News, Schools, UNISON Campaign

Barnet UNISON has now written to 67 schools where we have reason to believe our members are not being paid correctly.

If your school talks to you about this matter please refer them back to Barnet UNISON.

Our proposal to settle this matter is as follows:

Barnet UNISON would like to reach a local resolution on this matter which would involve the following:

  1. The School adopting the correct formula for paying TTO staff.

Barnet UNISON is recommending to all schools in Barnet that they should adopt the annual leave policy and term time formula used by Barnet Council since 1 April 2018.

  1. Backdating compensation for historic underpayments.
  2. Compensation for any loss of pension resulting from the miscalculation of annual leave and pay.

If you have any questions or concerns about your pay please ring our Barnet UNISON office on 0208 359 2088 or email contactus@barnetunison.org.uk

End.

Background:

URGENT UPDATE: Your Pay could be wrong. This is what you must do.

URGENT UPDATE: Your Pay could be wrong. This is what you must do.

“Already over worked and underpaid, would you work for free?

https://www.barnetunison.me.uk/wp/2019/11/04/already-over-worked-and-underpaid-would-you-work-for-free/

URGENT UPDATE: Your Pay could be wrong. This is what you must do.

Austerity, Local, Schools, UNISON Campaign

Please ring the Barnet UNISON office on 0208 359 2088 in order that the Branch can explain the TWO things you need to do:

  1. Complete and return the UNISON information sheet about your work.
  2. Send a copy of your payslips to the branch.

You can download the Barnet UNISON information sheet by clicking the link below to our web site

https://www.barnetunison.me.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Barnet-Schools-Newsletter-Autumn-2019-Final-.pdf

You can email your questions to Barnet UNISON at contactus@barnetunison.org.uk

You can view the latest Barnet UNISON schools newsletter explaining what we are doing about Pay by click this link to our web site below

https://www.barnetunison.me.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Barnet-Schools-Newsletter-Autumn-2019-Final-.pdf

Good News: Street Scene service moving out of Harrow depot

Austerity, Health and Safety, Local, News, Report, Uncategorised

Barnet UNISON will never understand how a major strategic decision like moving the Council depot was made without a viable option was available to the Council frontline services.

What happened was a classic fudge/ad hoc/make do. To put it simply it has been a disaster.

The Waste and Recycling and Street Cleansing services were split between the new depot in Oakleigh Road South and London Borough of Harrow depot.

Not only was it bad operationally it was expensive and the ongoing costs have been a constant strain on the service.

The Gritting service was also moved to Harrow and we all know what happened when we had a bad winter two years ago despite the heroic efforts of the workforce to try and make it work.

It was never going to work. The staff across all services have tried their best to make it work. The fact that staffing budgets were also cut simply added to the problem. .

What didn’t help and still doesn’t help is seeing that the Capita contracts have cashed in to the tune of £438 million since the contract started which is £165.6 million more than the contract value. Try explaining that to workers whose pay or pensions has been messed up by Capita or to the staff working at Oakleigh who have seen their branch new depot splitting like it has been hit by a minor earth quake.

What is the good news?

The good news is that the Brogans site which has been empty for a long time has been secured by Barnet Council.

This means the whole of the Waste and Recycling service is now running out of Oakleigh Depot. However we are still running Street Cleansing out of Harrow which means we are still paying rent on the Harrow site and now the Brogans site.

Depot Building works

The depot has some serious problems the subsidence has split the road and there appears to be real risk of a landslide which is something that has happened in the past. This risk was clearly sufficiently serious for the Council to arrange for buildings works to begin sometime in November this year.

Rounds changes.

As a result of the major building works at the depot there is an impact on the Bin collection service. Barnet Council has written to residents about the changes.

It is disappointing that the changes had not been run by the drivers. This mistake was made with the previous Bin collection changes.

There is nothing we can do now.

It remains to be seen if the proposed changes will work.

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