History Repeating? (14/05/14)

I'm still waiting for my invitation to attend the series of local Unison meetings taking place next week in North Lanarkshire, even though I've extended the hand of friendship over the unions coming to A4ES events.

But I've now received a copy of a letter sent to union members recently which says the trade unions are trying to come to a further agreement with North Lanarkshire Council over its pay and grading structures - which the unions hope to put to a future ballot of members.

Now this surprises me I have to say because as far as I can tell there has been no real consultation with union members over what is being discussed or proposed.

And if I remember correctly, this has happened before and the outcome was a huge mess with the Council recently being forced to concede (in the Employment Tribunals) that it has got the gradings of many key female jobs (such as Home Support Workers) completely wrong. 

So, my first question would be - 'How can there be a Plan B when no one has yet explained what went wrong with Plan A?' 

In addition, North Lanarkshire Council is coming under huge pressure to explain how different jobs have been assimilated on to the existing pay scales - because it seems that former bonus earning jobs have had their old bonus earnings taken into account.

If you ask me, I would be insisting that the Council puts this business to rights before embarking on further changes which no one properly understands - and it does surprise me that the unions appear to be going along with this nonsense.

Before the Council introduced job evaluation back in 2006 the unions insisted on an independent 'Equality Impact Assessment', so I would want to know why they are not proposing to do the same thing this time around - and share the details with union members.   

Another worrying aspect of the 'new deal' is that it appears to be leaving the term-time workers high and dry - so anyone employed in a school based job is likely to be worse off compared to other parts of the Council.

All of which means that if I were a union member in North Lanarkshire, I would be insisting on some proper consultation and straight answers to straight questions, otherwise the long suffering members yet may be getting asked to buy a 'pig in a poke' - again.