Dear Member,
As we approach the end of the first 90 day cycle in the City Council’s Job cuts plans I’d like to let you know how we intend to respond to the next phase of consultation.
So far UNISON representatives have been consulting with management on the structure that is being put in place to aid with the reorganisation. These include the flexible retirement policy and voluntary redundancy policy.
At the beginning of July the City Council will submit notification of its intention to make over 250 staff redundant to the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR). At the same time formal consultation with UNISON will begin.
Meetings will be held between the UNISON negotiators and Graham White and his team. Each meeting will focus on a different area of the organisation and will be attended also by the project lead for that department.
During discussions we will be focused on some of the very fine detail of particular departments’ organisation and ways of working which we will need local support in negotiating on.
Local activists and members need to study the organisational charts that will be released and ensure their alternatives and proposals are included in any discussion with UNISON.
This can be done by holding local shop meetings, Stewards Committees and departmental mass meetings. The outcomes of these discussions should then be fed into the steering group and ultimately into the negotiating meetings. Local activists with detailed knowledge of their areas will be invited to attend to support the negotiating team as necessary
If you do not have a local Steward it is vital that you elect one now or at the very least nominate someone to become a workplace contact.
These job cuts simply cannot be fought against without substantial input and support from you the member.
(If you would like assistance with the election of a Shop steward (or workplace contact) in your team please contact the Branch office on 2389).
Then next council wide mass meetings will take place on 13th & 14th of July at 4pm in the City Hall and Lisson Grove canteens respectively. Please do your best to attend at least one of these meetings as we have negotiated time off for all members to attend.
I realise that this is a worrying and stressful time to be a member of staff at Westminster Council but we can and will minimise the amount of job losses in two ways, firstly by challenging the City Council on the way it intends to organise itself in the future. It is us the workforce that know how the real work is achieved and what it takes on a daily basis to get the job done to the standard that Westminster residents have come to expect. Therefore it is us the workforce which must scrutinise, challenge, dissect, comment upon and suggest alternatives to the future plans of working being put forward by the City Council which will result in a reduction of the amount of overall staff yet not in the amount of work.
But the reasons for this current round of redundancies are not solely about changing the way we work. They are also about saving the Council money.
We are being led to believe that we are working for a cash-strapped council that desperately needs to make savings. Meanwhile over £230,000 is spent every year on private healthcare insurance for senior managers, consultants are being paid £900 per day, the executive car allowance scheme is alive and well, the communications department has a £3 million budget and lets not forget the £17 million in failed Icelandic banks!
Clearly the Council should be tightening it’s belt elsewhere instead of taking this drastic action which will (and make no mistake about it) have an adverse affect on front line services which will put in jeopardy the reputation of Westminster as the place to work, live or play.
UNISON has met on one occasion with the Finance Director Peter Hayday and Peter will be attending our steering group meeting in the next two weeks to answer questions on the council finances and make a case for the cuts.
Although we are now moving into the ‘nuts n bolts’ of negotiation we have not lost sight of the process based issues which are still cropping up across the council.
We are concerned that despite a road map being written and published by HR some local managers are either misinterpreting it and/or simply have not read it.
Ring fencing and assimilation are both terms which are defined both in the Council wide reorganisation policy and in the HR road map. These are the authoritative policies and where there is doubt we will be referring managers back to them.
We also have a commitment from Graham White that during this reorganisation the council will not be operating outside of policies which are currently in place. So we are very keen to hear from anyone who thinks there has been a deviation in the policies.
The proposed cuts cannot be fought against without your support. We need you to join the Steering Group, hold local meetings, elect local representatives and attend the organised mass meetings.
As the biggest trade union within Westminster we are well positioned to minimise the amount of job losses and their impact on the remaining workforce.
It’s worth pointing out that as we are now entering into the statutory phase of consultation, the final organisational structure has not been decided and we can effect change. We must provide management with alternatives to their proposed structure in order to save jobs. Those alternatives will come from our local reps, stewards, workplace contacts and most of all you the member.
Don’t leave it to someone else we all need to pitch in!
Westminster UNISON will fight vigorously to save every single job that is proposed to be cut, we will take our lead from our members and ensure that their concerns are acknowledged and mitigated at the highest levels in this organisation.
We will take appropriate advantage of and put to good use every resource available to us, up to and including forms of industrial action.
Stephen Higgins
Branch Secretary
Westminster UNISON
