There's been a long radio silence from the South West, but the following has emerged:-
IT switch or on? Next week and beyond.
Short Branch Update 20th January 2017
Dear Members,
This is brief update to keep you informed as far as we can on the current issues. We are still holding on for the long awaited legal advisories that we have asked for as these will tie in directly to the next scheduled National Joint secretaries meeting around the middle of February.
Sadly we are there because of the total and constant failing of Working Links to really want to engage properly on the staffing workloads arrangements. Deliver any appropriate input to working on a fair and equitable workload weighting agreement, or to provide all staff and the unions with genuine risk assessments under occupational health and safety legislation. Despite their obscure and poorly researched avoidance response we have little positive to report on the current position.
In that process however, NAPO UNISON are also waiting on the formal and legal advice for the health and safety failures that Working Links continue to require from their agents and management. Napo will not be party to ignoring their legal obligations and will enforce those issues. We continue to challenge the already failing position they have advanced. Many of you will recall we have called for equality impact assessments on staffing who both remain and were previously claimed to be at risk because of the WL appalling calculations on reducing so many staff.
Here we are a long way down the road and many staff who are feeling like they are stuck in roles and not provided a genuine or fair equal exit route. Certainly nothing similar to likes of others who were previously favoured by rank or role. The hostile tactic of severance which many staff surprisingly appeared happy to take and with huge personal losses to themselves. This situation only contributes to the bulging and greed driven pocket of the Working Links money absorption policy. By that there were no staff awarded their entitlements to pensions. Working Links choosing to make flat and disadvantageous incentives to the already depressed and weary. OK enough of that we now have what we predicted a core of some harder line staff who were neither able to get out or indeed could afford to, with such a poor prospect facing them who are now going to be subsumed into the new staffing to continuity. Oh really!
With that they will not have any recognised workloads agreement, no health and safety assessments on buildings locations and travel. Workload weighting for new tasks! Nothing from IT and assistive user technology arrangements or union consultation. Locally or nationally. Napo members are already reporting a continued onslaught at the attempts to vary their jobs and as yet zero consultation or proper protections in place. All side stepped and avoided in any documents and proper responses from the Working Links Spin cycle.
You all get the picture NAPO e mail is busy and we continue to issue the same advice as we wait patiently for the Working Links wheels to fall off. Today gives us another prime example of the over energetic hurry to collapse the IT system and yet they now report they are still without the important permission's to do so. Is this more about losing IT on costs and making that extra lolly in profits than actually making sure things are well understood? Who knows at this moment, only we continue to challenge the mess on your behalf.
There are too many examples coming through that illustrate the unfair practices of Working Links towards the diverse nature and needs of our staff across a range of protected characteristics. Also the change in locations and flat rejections to honour staff terms and protections, are all on costs to lowest paid employees. I want to know what chunk of public funding is finding its way into the board members of Working Links, its time we made those inquiries. It is all set for more dispute as the issues take hold and more staff develop the confidence and start to reject the Working Links way and the constant "our people" rubbish. If that were the case, treat our people our members properly and honour their terms comes echoing to my mind which has been expressed to me a whole lot of late, from many and very angry members.
Unpaid work at the forefront for the moment as these staff have the most depressing attacks on their roles and safe working practices. Vans groups sizes and pick up, all under the spotlight for a major issue and dispute. We are proud of our members holding the line there and we continue with the authorities shortly to bring some much needed direction and correcting to this situation. In the meantime we assert there has still been no risk assessments to health and safety to their proposed planned changes to unpaid work. There cannot be any reasonable why not? We speculate that if they had done so properly they could not operate such a drastic cut in operations. Well you will all realise what that means.
Currently we are yet to see how the shiny new laptop roll out will impact on your current jobs and to what extent the management try and vary your roles without agreement. If you are in doubt, contact the branch. Continue to press home the need to have representation and the need to consult properly on the issues and ensure you get everything in writing. As their changes start to drive home a more aggressive direct, we can then take stock of the protections and process we engage to represent you.
This branch update was meant to be a sad recognition that today we are planned to come off the previous and last ties to the public service IT system. That gave us an additional sense of identity as was public sector workers. Instead we have that bleak orange facing new screen of the take over and less of a light touch contract management that they tried to dupe many of us to believe. Well here we are a couple of days reprieve but whatever happens on the other side of the migration, Napo will continue to get our message out there to you. If necessary open a new access point for all members through Napos national network. That said, I could not believe they would openly cut our 'all members information' route while they still hold section 188 compulsory redundancy notices, despite so many of our staff leaving shortly. Good luck to many of them, our Napo members.
In saying goodbye we also loose our very well respected and ex Napo Branch Chair of Dorset. No doubt fed up and angered by the situation we all face another PO lost to the region and another mark on the spiral downwards of quality but there we are. Sadly our long served colleague Debbie Holmes will be leaving Napo ranks and the former great probation. Having served many years in a union role and a great supporter of equality fairness and practices. I will just say a simple thanks to Debbie here for now, but will mark her leaving for a new role properly in the next branch report. Thanks Deb.
Members thanks to all as we continue to fight to ensure your protections and restitution of your terms as we continue in the current dispute over health safety and your future securities. We will update you on the ACAS feud and virtual farce shortly.
Dino Peros SSW Branch Chair
JNCC Napo Rep
Waiting for legal advice is a Waiting for Godot situation and simply exposes all the waffle that has been driving the so-called resistance in the South West. A union should not be surprised there was a clamour for severance – it should be attuned to the mood of its members. Presumably the ex-Branch Chair is also going on reduced terms. There is no militancy anywhere and members will be better led when this is accepted.
ReplyDeleteThe document is dated 20 January. Today is 13 March. We don't know if they have received the legal advice or not, or what it might say. Why would it be published on here in any case?
DeleteI'm sorry that you feel so defeatist and negative. Luckily there are some strong people in the South West and they understand the benefit of a strategy.
They have been waiting for months for legal advice. I wonder if its been commissioned, if Napo central will pay for it. No such delays when the former GS was lavished with legal expenditure. As for strategy - it didn't work.
DeleteYou clearly lack understanding of unionism and wonder who your attacking here the members, NAPO or South West chair? "attuned to the sound of its members"....I wonder what you think NAPO members sound like then ? defeated and sold out by NAPO leaders probably but not this one in South East...What have you done blogger to be militant ? or are you anti unionism ?
DeleteThat should read South West
DeleteThe South West are the most liveliest and challenging branch that I have read on here. We certainly read there is a union pulse down there. Well done to them.
Delete15:54 what exactly did the outgoing GS get in legal costs what are you saying? What strategy did not work ?
07.59 - just to set the record straight (lest anyone things I took the 30 pieces of silver). I resigned from DDC CRC - would not have applied for voluntary severance on principle, altho did apply for early retirement (as is possible under our policy so open to everyone over 55) but was knocked back as 'too valuable to lose'. Ha ha, so I resigned anyway and now work for a charity that supports refugees, on reduced pay and reduced hours but I am sleeping better and happier. Hats off to those of you still sticking it out - huge admiration from me.
DeleteDeb
Ex Dorset Branch Chair
Well done to you and good luck no one can blame you. It seems those who sold for the 30 pieces of silver were afraid weakened and had their value measured it was their choice.
DeleteThe following is from a piece that claims climate change & the accompanying science is a falsehood. I do NOT for one moment agree with or subscribe to that position but its fascinating how the author's view of the 'enemy' so closely resembles my view of the MoJ/Noms/CRCs. Total Polarity is alive & kicking & never the twain shall meet.
ReplyDelete"Don’t get me wrong, we’re none of us saints, we all tell a few fibs at times and the occasional whopper, but for most people there’s no systemic pattern of deception.
For what I call the true deceivers, there always is that habitual behaviour pattern and because they’ve got away with it undetected so often and for so long, they gradually become emboldened to really think they can fool everyone all of the time. They exhibit a certain smug arrogance and I think that’s what your subconscious animal antennae pick up on when you first meet them. In the end it becomes a sort of dominance fix for them, they’ll sometimes pull a sly move even if they don’t need to.
They have no real sense of boundary, decency or what used to be termed honour about them; they are fundamentally amoral but they never think of themselves as being so. They always knew they were special, destined even, and that bit cleverer than any one of their contemporaries, but life and smaller people have conspired to rob them of their proper recognition.
In response and as they’re the aggrieved party, they’re quite prepared to right that wrong by whatever means possible. The injustice must be addressed. They will dissemble, fudge, fabricate, mislead and just plain cheat their way to the proper recognition of their god given specialness. The more that’s denied them, the harder they’ll cheat the game. It’s only fair after all."
Can this broken, polarised society of have's & have-not's ever be mended?
Bernie Saunders - 'Despair is not an option'.
DeleteStirring stuff and well done Dinos for continuing to keep members informed. NAPO Cymru need to take a leaf out of his book in regards to keeping members informed. It would be good if Dinos got someone to check over what he has written prior to sending out, as sometimes it doesn't read as well as it could.
ReplyDeleteRead up on Agenda 21. How do you control a population? Destroy the idea of middle class aspiration, remove protections, make redress expensive, turn students into a new generation of debtors, price housing out of reach, remove funding for services, tax the already taxed even further until they bleed, manufacture a referendum to play with while criminal acts committed while no one's looking. It's astonishing how we put up with this... Sociopathic control freaks laughing all the way to their off shore bank accounts. Am so sick and ashamed of this country.
ReplyDeleteWe Brits are a pretty docile lot, put up with any old crap thrown at us.
DeleteProblem is the middle class are self consuming and destroying their own. It is more than class war. We have new internal competition thanks to greed and Tory ideology. With 3 years to go they will savage a lot more from the public services.
DeleteExplain what is meant by the phrase 'harder line staff'? Does it imply that those who have left voluntarily or through severance packages as weaker in some way? Maybe some of the people who have left or are leaving soon are brave in letting go of their lifetime career and placing their own well-being and freedom from oppressive and soul-destroying management as their main priority? There is life after Probation - many of my former colleagues look healthier and happier after leaving.
ReplyDeleteIt reads clearly to me the reports is trying to cover the wide situational developments that he claims were predicted. Terming Severance as a hostile seems fair enough to me it was not fair to staff. There is a clear explanation of staff being termed harder line as not being able to get out or afford to. He has no view on those leaving. Terming yourself as brave because you have a different priority list than those who remain and whoi have not been offered an incentive to go illustrates your centric attitude and lack of vision and strategy. Re read it try and understand the wider perspectives than your own narrowed decisions.
DeleteHere we are a long way down the road and many staff who are feeling like they are stuck in roles and not provided a genuine or fair equal exit route. Certainly nothing similar to likes of others who were previously favoured by rank or role. The hostile tactic of severance which many staff surprisingly appeared happy to take and with huge personal losses to themselves. This situation only contributes to the bulging and greed driven pocket of the Working Links money absorption policy. By that there were no staff awarded their entitlements to pensions. Working Links choosing to make flat and disadvantageous incentives to the already depressed and weary. OK enough of that we now have what we predicted a core of some harder line staff who were neither able to get out or indeed could afford to, with such a poor prospect facing them who are now going to be subsumed into the new staffing to continuity.
Just to point out to 10.16 - please 're-read' my post. I did not refer to myself as 'brave', my comment was in the third person.
ReplyDeleteOh ! Yes of course you are. That's the same as its not me I am just asking for a friend. What point is being made here? Writing in the first person here I do not see the inference you were making. Get yourself a new bone.
DeleteIgnorance is bliss! If you really understood that people like myself have been Branch reps, attended local and National AGM's, stood on picket lines etc..... for over 20yrs and become disillusioned with NAPo on a national level. Local reps have been very supportive, but when it came to the crunch when concerns were raised to a national level, backtracking was evident and many of us left with no option but to weigh up the 'real' rather than idealised options. Sorry to say, have been an union person but see no future for NAPO when members attack each other on this blog and are in denial of what's really happening out there.
DeleteHow are members supposed to know what to make of their position, NAPO and UNISON HQ support local collective bargaining over NNC and SCOGG. Local branches are stretched with too few reps and no cross representing for NPS and CRC. The chairs are silent and don't communicate any strategy to instill members confidence that NAPO is taking a hard line.
ReplyDeleteYou are asking for clarity and yet many on here have consistently shot those who might bring some down in flames in a very personal and vindictive way. No one in their right mind is going to start sharing their ideas in public to be picked apart. Many people have abandoned the unions after reading this blog believing that all their leaders from top to bottom are fools from top to bottom. This has no doubt given great encouragement to those who have previously found unions a challenge. They can now look at the 'will of the people' on here who appear to want strong unions and yet are not prepared to support them or their leaders. They end up chasing after wild cards and mavericks who might sound radical but that is where it begins and ends. Very few people are volunteering to become union reps in probation and that is a huge problem because so many have left. Just saying repeatedly it's all a dogs breakfast and we told you so will not change anything. At the moment we need good minds skilled in consultation and negotiating with a good grasp of employment law. Such people are feared far more than those with poor impulse control. Local collective bargaining is now the way forward because the other ways are no longer available or practicable given the resources available. The hard line is only possible when you have strength in numbers and if you don't then a different approach is required.
ReplyDeleteThe employers have eaten all the other trade union representatives as Hors D'oeuvre. That, or they ran away. We see constant energy in the SW as reported. 23:40 Do you suggest they should be quiet and capitulate? Perhaps you are for the management in the south west? I would have thought every other CRC are glad they did not get the defence of Napo by length and activity. The rep is well known and still working on the issues. Tenacious possibly but still in the middle of the situation defending members rights. If you want surrender don't be in a union? At the very least you read like an apologist and have little analytical skill for the nature of that role. The management in control with inexperienced reps fear nothing from unions your views could not be more wrong. Numbers is irrelevant it only take the 1 ! Yes just 1.
DeleteWhat nonsense: it takes just 1. Like those few Japanese soldiers, refusing to believe the war was over, hiding in jungles for 60 years.
DeleteRosa parks !
DeleteRosa Luxomberg Russian feminist
DeleteRosa Luxumberg was of Polish origins. Both women were part of social movements. I suppose you could have even thrown in Jesus Christ or the Buddha in support of your specious points. The clue is in the word union - it's solidarity that opens up the possibility of overcoming more powerful foes. The stuff in the South West has descended into a pantomime. Tell me what, if anything, has been accomplished - just list the achievements, don't bother about putting them in alphabetical order.
DeleteOk so what, the point is it just took one person. Your flippancy in reply who cares? Many posts on here are meaningless and yours is a prime example like the idiot going off about soldiers above. If you want religion its full of hero's David was one. You refer to a pantomime what are you talking about? another opinion no ideas on how to explain that to readers. Boring. The situation is the southwest are the only branch maintaining our rights and the NAPO general secretary Ian Lawrence too. I heard he was excellent and present in their well attended meetings. Good enough for me.
DeleteIL was excellent and your meetings were well attended. So what have you actually achieved?
DeleteMore than taunting many understand the value in strategy. You ask for a result that most likely cannot be measured or disclosed. I wait for their reports like everyone else.
DeleteThe essence of the dispute was to preserve enhanced redundancy conditions. The unions failed, staff have left on reduced terms. Something that cannot be measured is not a result, so no wonder it cannot be disclosed. This is typical Napo spin: they ignore inconvenient truths and hope in time people will forget. But, as you say, let's wait, and wait, for the report.
DeleteIt was said that the '83 Labour manifesto was the longest suicide note in history. Well, with these interminable updates from the South West there is now a rival for this epitaph.
Delete07:47 It was a dispute to prevent the cuts at 40% and unsafe working model that was too low on staffing to deliver safe services. There is a dispute on about compulsory redundancies as part of that as reported already I cannot paste the link here but all the staff terms who have left have been volunteers and sold out their terms voluntarily. No dispute on what individuals do.
Deletehttps://probationmatters.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/crc-dispute-latest-5.html
Deletehttp://www.carolineflint.org/probation_services_changes_incomplete_says_flint
ReplyDelete- this was posted 23/09/16
Anyone else think it is totally farcical that an organisation called working links who were presumably founded on getting people into employment are so keen to lay off 40% of their staff and move the remaining staff to offices that are no longer suitable for disabled employees? If I lose my mobility I will not be able to work in existing office as loads of stairs and no lift...says it all broken links!
ReplyDelete