GMB@WORK WITHIN NOTTINGHAM CITY COUNCIL

Change to Terms and Conditions

1. The removal of senior leadership management groups’ competency based pay – this gives a projected cost saving of £150,000 per annum and affects 100 individuals.

2. The introduction of car parking charges for colleagues and Councils in addition to and in advance of the introduction of workplace parking levy.  As a result of this there is a potential cost saving of £780,000 per annum, bearing in mind that there are 1500 car users within the local authority this could lead to a payment of 11.30 per week per individual car.  This is not including the proposed parking levy that will come into effect next year.

3. The reduction of time spent on redeployment register from 6 months to 3 months.  This is a cost saving of £700,000 per annum.  This was only implemented on the 1st November 2010, as part of the single status settlement under phase 1. 

4. Reducing redundancy payments (discretionary redundancy compensation payments) from 2.5 times the statutory amount to 1.5 times the statutory payment (statutory payment equals a weeks pay currently capped at £380).  It is interesting to note that now the attention has turned to the majority of workers, i.e. our members – it is interesting to note that they wish to reduce the terms and conditions of employment.  There would be a saving of one million pounds on this particular item alone.

5. The freezing of incremental pay for two years – as everybody will be aware as part of single status, spinal column points and incremental payments were part and parcel of the overall agreement, and to actually now expect our members to accept a pay freeze for the next two years on these issues bearing in mind the failure of the Authority to implement the £250 payments to people under the pay threshold of £21,000, beggars belief and again attacks the personal terms and conditions of all of our members.

6. The removal of contractual sick pay for the first 3 days of sickness absence – again this is an attack on terms and conditions of employment, bearing in mind that some of our members have never actually had sick pay and this was the first time that they were actually protected this again concerns us greatly.  The alleged cost saving per annum would be £700,000.

Voluntary Measures

There are 2 items under voluntary measures that need to be considered. 

1. The introduction of voluntary reduction of hours and purchase of additional leave / sabbatical options.

2. Encourage flexible retirement for employees aged 55 or over to reduce their hours and grades in order to access their pensions early – this would be on a non replacement basis only.

Trade Union Response

Bearing in mind that we were given these proposals our response to most of them was one of disbelieve that an Authority could treat its employees so badly or propose to treat its employees so badly.  We appreciate the severity of the measures that potentially may need to be put in place to deal with these issues, but again it beggars belief that a Labour controlled Authority would treat its employees so poorly. 

As a result the Unions indicated strong opposition to all of the above bar the voluntary measures, subject to consultation with our members.  We believe that further discussions will need to take place and the trade unions have resolved to fight this jointly.  As a consequence a further meeting has been arranged for Friday 17th December where further specific details are expected and once we are in receipt of this information we will be setting up consultation groups in the New Year to hear our members concerns and responses from themselves. 

If indeed you have any comments or further points that you wish us to consider in our more formal response, then please feel free to put them in writing to us at the GMB Regional Office or contact your Branch Secretary, Gary Chambers or any of the representatives and ask them to forward them on to us.

Kind regards.

CHRIS NEEDHAM
GMB ORGANISER

GARY CHAMBERS
BRANCH SECRETARY