Management Shenanigans and the Redundancy Scheme

Management underhand tactics in meetings with Unions

Unison convenors have been involved during the past 3 months in discussions with the authority over a new look redundancy scheme to replace the previous enhanced scheme which became defunct on March 31st 2007 due to new age discrimination laws.

This has been a frustrating process but UNISON's position from the start has been that any new scheme must be at least as good as the previous scheme if not better for any employee faced with losing their job.

The details of the scheme are fairly straight forward: it is based on the statutory redundancy scheme ( where you get 1 - 1.5 weeks salary for each year of service ) but is based on actual weekly salary ( rather than being capped at £310 per week).

The authority has proposed ( and this is where it gets interesting) taking this figure and applying a

multiplyer

In the latest meeting trade unions were informed that the authority would agree to a multiplyer of 2.0 but then stated that if we did not agree immediately it would be taken to the Employee Relations Committee with a management recommendation that a multiplyer of 1.75 should be imposed!!

UNISON strenuosly objected to management using blackmail as a negotiating tactic and insisted that it was unacceptable to bring an offer to the negotiating table only to threaten its withdrawal. UNISON formally demanded that Trade Unions be allowed to present their proposals to the ERC. Unsurprisingly, this request has been refused and management have insisted that we either accept 2.0 by Friday 8th June or see 1.75 imposed.

It is our view that we are here to represent your interests and to secure the best terms and protections possible. In this context it is unforgivable that senior management should threaten to collectively punish the entire workforce simply because they don't like it when Unions do their jobs.

We believe that our proposals were reasonable and affordable and that we were close to an agreement. However it is solely due to management intransigence and shoddy tactics that we find ourselves in this situation.

UNISON entered into these discussions in good faith and we believe that we had achieved much at this stage. We also believe that it is entirely reasonable to expect that the authority should not seek to save money at the same time that employees are losing their jobs.

We are now making representations to the ERC and this may be an issue over which we are forced to register a dispute. Watch this space to keep informed - more news by the end of the week.