9th December 2016
UNIONS SUSPEND INVOLVEMENT IN ACAS AND DEMAND ACTION ON HEALTH AND SAFETY
In our last members update we advised that we were awaiting a substantive response from Aurelius/Working Links in order to determine whether we were prepared to continue with the talks being brokered by ACAS.
Given that the company has still to respond to our requests we have now taken the decision that we will not be returning to ACAS until we see a constructive response to our letters of 13th and 25th November to Aurelius/Working Links.
We are grateful for the considerable efforts that ACAS officials have made so far to try and find a way forward but we do not see the point in wasting time and valuable public resources while the employers side are not demonstrating sufficient commitment to the process.
Members express anger at developments
At an extremely well attended meeting this week in Devon, members of all unions (and a number of prospective members) gathered to receive news of the difficulties that the unions have encountered in trying to find a resolution of this dispute. This centres on the plans by Aurelius/Working Links to reduce the workforce to unacceptable levels and implement an Operational Model which we maintain fails to provide the levels of safety to the public and staff.
The meeting revealed just how disillusioned staff are about the way in which the workforce has been treated and the double standards over Enhanced Voluntary Redundancy payments and the shabbily presented and inferior Voluntary Severance scheme that many people have reported they felt tricked into accepting.
The meeting also heard from a number of members based in Unpaid Work who expressed their disgust at the intended restructuring and expectation that they will be expected to deliver services for more clients with even less resources than are available now.
The unions will be organising a series of consultative meetings early in the new year to report back on a number of issues and to test the mood of members to consider all the legal options as well as the possibility of further action in defence of jobs and services.
Unions await legal advice
Meanwhile the unions are awaiting written advice on our legal options following a constructive meeting with lawyers earlier this week which considered the situation in terms of the legal requirements to consult prior to variation of individual contracts and in respect of the health and safety aspects that featured heavily at the last joint session with the employers side under the auspices of ACAS.
We are also pressing the NNC Joint Secretaries to convene a meeting in order that the parties report back to them as requested in their initial determination.
Local Health and Safety
Given the importance that we are attaching to the wellbeing of our members it has been agreed that local union reps will engage in Health and Safety activities relating specifically to joint meetings with management and the inspection of workplaces.
Members are urged to advise their local reps of any issues where they consider that their health and wellbeing and that of the public and clients is being put at risk.
The unions will be issuing further advice to members about action that you can take to ensure that your employer is made aware if you feel that you, or others, are being placed at risk.
Among the demands we have made through ACAS is that the employers side must provide guarantees that they are able to provide a safe working environment, an agreed upper caseload figure and provide us with material on aspects of the Operational Model that were promised to the unions at our last joint meeting.
Meanwhile, we express our appreciation to all union members and those who have recently decided to join a trade union, for your support during this dispute.
IAN LAWRENCE GLYN JONES DAVID WALTON
General Secretary Regional Organiser National Secretary
Napo UNISON GMB/SCOOP
Will union reps be visiting all the crc offices and reporting centres or only the ones where there are napo members? This could be an opportunity to gather more members!
ReplyDeleteIts clear the South West T.U chair and reps intend to fight this disgraceful employer and will do whatever it takes. Its a pity there wasn't the same local knowledge and commitment from the reps in the North. It is interesting the General Secretary ran those campaigns without success, yet he likes to put his name to documents that others have prepared for him. Good luck to the NAPO Chair and reps in the South West, your results will benefit us all. It is just a matter of time until NPS take the same road and try to dismiss staff without their entitlements.
ReplyDeleteIf I may offer a small observation, the Sodexo clearances weren't just "in the North" and I think the local union reps involved in those areas were simply hung out to dry by their union HQs, i.e. both Napo & Unison.
DeleteTR & the subsequent impact upon staff (job losses, VolSev, office closures, etc) was an unprecedented series of events and, with no central direction by those who were involved in negotiations with Noms/MoJ for years, the local reps were left in a vacuum; the failings lay with those paid to provide leadership, not those who did their best with scraps of 'facility time'. Napo HQ let those members down in a big way, as did Unison.
Its good to see that SW have learned from those past mistakes, put in time & effort to understand the 'game' being played (e.g. "double standards over Enhanced Voluntary Redundancy payments and the shabbily presented and inferior Voluntary Severance scheme that many people have reported they felt tricked into accepting") and kept the goodwill/trust of local membership. The GS will undoubtedly jump on any passing opportunity to claim it as his own but the postings on this blog reveal where the real credit lies - and on this occasion its with the reps & staff in the SW for their tenacity. As has been posted previously, it is the SW momentum that has dragged the GS & others to ACAS. Good luck to you!
They will look at legal options and forms of industrial action in the new year – after testing the mood of members. You would think the mood would be known by now. All classic procratination tactics to avoid facing defeat in the eye.
DeleteThis SW dispute is almost over and the outcome will be as it was with Sodexo. There has been much noise, but the local branch is powerless to stop the inevitable. The one thing Napo members won't do is act in solidarity.
I think you missed your sign off there senior management working links ?
DeleteThe key is available to those who have the right direction and the support of members. That is possible not what all this dispute is about I think there is much as yet not seen.
Don't know what enigmatic 17.34 is saying here. You don't need to be a WL's advocate to see that this dispute is going nowhere. But you cannot stop people believing in cargo cults.
DeleteFrom the cash-strapped wikipedia
Delete"Feynman cautioned that to avoid becoming cargo cult scientists, researchers must avoid fooling themselves, be willing to question and doubt their own theories and their own results, and investigate possible flaws in a theory or an experiment. He recommended that researchers adopt an unusually high level of honesty which is rarely encountered in everyday life..."
BGSW have a hub in Stroud (after closing the probation office) that is so unfit for interviewing clients - all sitting in one Hall. No confidentiality. This also extends to the community office space they rent as it is shared by a local pizza business who use it to do their accounts and place orders. Phone conversations made in the office reportedly vary from child protection calls to "2 boxes of thin base pizza's please".
ReplyDeleteWLs you are a joke.
So why are you not refusing to use the office space or make those calls/have those conversations? Because, as sure as eggs are eggs, one day the call you are making will be about a bloke the Pizza hut chap knows or who lives up his road, whom he doesn't like. Then the shit will really hit the fan.
DeleteSurely that cannot be allowed. We have a duty of confidentiality.
ReplyDeleteWho is 'we'. There is no we anymore. These are separate private companies profiting from the Criminal justice system.
ReplyDeleteNot very much profit, the way I hear it!
DeleteFar too much profit for the actual service they provide.
DeleteAnd this is the Achilles Heel!
ReplyDeleteGo on strike and stay out! Yes, this will impact on those involved but not as much as failed targets will impact on the revenue of these shysters. The Eldridge Fund was set up for these very reasons and could be utilised to help those without savings. If we went out for a whole month, the revenue lost by failed targets would be in the hundreds of thousands, and the media would likely take more of an interest in Probation. Look at the coverage the POA strike brought.
Food for thought!
That is not why the Edridge fund was set up at all though The Trustees may look favourably on any eligible person, in need.
DeleteI think it would be for Napo/Unison/GMB to set up strike funds to which I would willingly and gladly contribute.
I write as a 1980s local rep for Edridge for two or three years. I have the impression that nowadays The Trustees receive more requests than can easily be met, but they are creative and have ways of giving support that can get funds from other sources. Maybe a Trustee will contribute a blog piece?
This is a crowd fund support issue too and it may well have traction lets hope the reps are clued up on the possibility of wrecking the targets to save jobs.
DeleteWell-intentioned but fanciful proposal as is crowdfunding. Anyway, secondary to the fact that Napo members have no will to strike en-masse. Only a minority ever showed solidarity. The Napo leadership know they are leading a passive bunch. Only strike action offers the possibility of success, but as it will never happen, everything else is gestures. By all means attack me for saying so, but I imagine all this will be over in a couple of months, and failure will be rationalised and Napo will be blamed for something that was not winnable in the absence of solidarity.
DeleteHad a suggestion made to me last week - that staff need to en masse agree to just miss every cash linked target by one day. The clients would suffer no detriment to have their first appts, oasys Sentence plans or updates etc delayed by a day but the loss of revenue stream will stop the private companies in their tracks. The way caseload are going through the roof - could be hard to prove it is deliberate sabotage!!
DeleteFailed 1st appt £££££
ReplyDeleteFailed ISP £££££
Failed UW £££££
I have a feeling that Ministers may also be involved if the NPS cannot refer cases (and by default have to keep them). On the other hand, it may be prudent to keep Ms Truss away from this issue...she'll only make matters worse :/
If breaking off from ACAS talks and taking action puts commuters out of action, the media winds itself up, and everyone gets agitated. Sadly, despite the fact that the "safety" of the public is so much more in peril as our profession is trashed, nobody seems to give a f.
ReplyDeleteCommon denominator = Grayling & his chums in the media from his time at the BBC. Remember "£46 in their pockets"? Or "£250M a week for the NHS"? Today's particularly lame tactic was blaming one person's loss of a job on the rail strike, but the sick, trashy blow came when he claimed the strikes meant "people can't get to their cancer treatment in London." So the trains were never cancelled & were always on time before were they? I think not.
DeleteOi, Chrissy-boy, why not use your influence to expose the vile human rights violations around the world that the UK government is complicit in? Or the corrupt deals this government has entered into to line the pockets of global facilities companies? Or the ongoing pillaging of public funds by MPs under the cover of the IPSA expenses arrangements.
It strikes me that a little encouragement to a client and an astute lawyer who knows his human rights legislation like the back of hand could have a field day with all and sundry
ReplyDeleteStroud crc sharing an open plan office space where they make calls about such things as child protection with a pizza delivery accounts office! How on earth was this ever approved by crc management? This is a massive data protection fail and sureky illegal. It is not just stroud i hear but offenders being interviewed in open plan public spaces elsewhere. Disgraceful!
ReplyDeleteThey should refuse. BGSW are involved in the current dispute. Why aren't they acting on this - Napo and Unison members - come on get a grip please for the rest of us.
DeleteHaving to take plastic bags to sit on at offices in bristol because the chairs upholsery is ingrained with filth is just not acceptable.
ReplyDeleteSee message above. Refuse to work there until it is sorted out. This is not acceptable to staff or Service Users. This is why Paul Hindson and Johyn Wiseman think they can get away with anything - we let them.
Delete