Questions and Answers
This page will be updated as stewards and officers
collate questions from members. Always check here first
before contacting your steward or the branch. See
also the Council's Q&As in their briefings or phone
the Council helpline on 0131 469 5060.
14
July: MODERNISING PAY: Some members have been raising
queries about the dismissal and re-engagement letters.
Click here for more advice on completing them (pdf)
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Why should I not sign first time?
UNISON believes that there are problems in the new
pay system including detrimental changes to your existing
terms and conditions. For that reason we cannot recommend
that you abandon your current contract on a voluntary
basis.
UNISON’s advice must remain that you should not sign
to abandon your current contract voluntarily. If you
volunteer at this stage to give up your current contract
and sign up to the new pay and conditions, you could
lose rights to pursue a case against the Council at
a later date. This is because you would have voluntarily
chosen, without the threat of losing your job, to change
your contract.
You will not lose your job by refusing
to sign up voluntarily and you will get another offer
of a contract on the new conditions in July 2010. But
when this second offer comes, the situation is different.
It will also give notice to terminate your current contract.
Our advice is you must accept the second offer,
albeit under duress, to keep your job. You have nothing
to lose - and possibly much to gain - by waiting until
July and you will still retain your continuous service,
accrued annual leave, sickness entitlement and pension
rights.
Click
here for the branch briefings for more detail
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Will I lose out if I don't sign voluntarily first
time?
There is a rumour that if staff will lose out if they
don't sign. Signing or not signing has no effect on
your personal contractual position, ie we will all accept
it either voluntarily or under duress and we will all
have the package as a whole imposed. Therefore when
you sign is a complete red herring. Council is clear
that the same deal will be available in the first and
second offers. So there will be no detriment in waiting
for the second offer.
Click
here for the branch briefings for moe detail
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What is Single Status/Modernising Pay?
Traditionally councils have had two sets of conditions.
'Manual Workers' covers jobs like Roads,Catering, Cleaning
and Home Carers and traditionally were paid weekly (some
fortnightly). APT&C covers jobs like admin, some
care workers and professional jobs like Social Work,
Trading Standards Officers and so on and they were traditionally
paid monthly.
Single Status, agreed by union members in a Scotland-wide
ballot in 1999, aimed to have one set of conditions.
Every job in local government would be evaluated through
an agreed scheme which would make gradings transparent
and meet the requirements of pay equality legislation.
Edinburgh is one of the last Councils to get to implementation.
Craft workers, Chief Officers, Blindcraft staff and
teachers are not included in Single Status.
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What is job evaluation?
Branch members voted in a ballot in Edinburgh in February
2006 to enter into negotiations around the Capital
Job Evaluation Scheme. The Branch had been trying
to get the Council to implement the agreed Scottish
scheme but evidence suggested the Capital scheme would
meet the necessary equality criteria and may have less
dramatic swings between 'winners and losers'.
Jobs are evaluated against a set of factors and each
factor is given a score. These are totalled and put
into a rank order which decides the pay and grading
for each job. In theory this should be fairer and comparable
jobs should have equal gradings.
For some of the history of the negotiations, click
www.unison-edinburgh.org.uk/condits/jobeval.html
Job evaluation is part of the deal signed in 1999.
The council must come up with a scheme to meet the legislation.
It is better that the union and its members are part
of that process. The union cannot associate itself with
standing in the way of an equal pay system. It is what
we have long campaigned for. However, UNISON believes
the Council has not invested enough and that will affect
pay at the end of the day.
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Why have other conditions like public holidays been
included?
The Council has lumped a range of other conditions
into the process. These include overtime, the working
week, public holidays being translated to annual leave
etc. UNISON has always taken the position that any changes
to conditions - except those needed to ensure equality
- should be negotiated and voted on separately. We have
always argued for 'levelling up' rather than 'levelling
down'.
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Changes to Annual Leave/Public Holidays. How do
they affect me?
Everybody EXCEPT Term-Time Workers will have all Public
Holidays apart from 25th/26th Dec and 1st/2nd January
converted into Annual Leave.
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Are the Flexi-time rules or the scheme being changed?
No. Originally the Council wished to place more stringent
restrictions on Flexi-Time but , after negotiation ,
the proposals were withdrawn.
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What is an equality assessment and how does that
affect any ballot?
An equality assessment looks at the job evaluation
to assess whether it delivers equality in terms of equal
pay legislation. Any scheme must be 'equality-proof'.
This is absolutely essential for the union and indeed
for the Council if it is to avoid future claims.
The union could not legally ballot on a scheme that
was not 'equality-proof'.
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What is the legal position and what is UNISON doing
about that?
The Council has to come up with a scheme that meets
equal pay legislation and UNISON also needs to ensure
that any scheme is 'equality proof'.
UNISON legal advisers will go over all aspects of the
scheme and this will ultimately decide the Branch's
final approach to the proposals.
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How does this affect equal pay claims?
Equal Pay claims will carry on as usual. Claims already
lodged will not be affected. When Single Status is properly
implemented it should deliver on equal pay and there
should be no inequalities that lead to future claims
(although it may expose new back claims).
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What happens to 'Bonus'?
Under Equal Pay legislation, comparing jobs done mainly
by women (like home carers) with jobs done mainly by
men (like roadworkers) - the first difference noticed
is usually bonus.
Under the Council's current proposals all bonus schemes
will end although there will be three year's protection
of normal contractual pay. Some people who lose bonus
may find their main grade increases.
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What does 'red circle', 'white circle' and 'green
circle' mean?
Normal contractual pay does not include discretionary
overtime, acting up payments or voluntary standby.
Green Circle means your placing on the new scheme
will mean an increase in normal contractual pay (although
other conditions changes may affect this)
White Circle means your normal contractual pay
should not change (although other conditions changes
may affect this)
Red Circle means your normal contractual pay
(including shift and bonus payments) will be protected
for three years if it is more than your current base
pay and any working time payments. But this is a 'standstill'
protection - see the next question.
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Is there pay protection in the Council's proposals?
The original Single Status deal had three years' protection
for anyone whose pay went down as a result of job evaluation.
Since then, some legal difficulties have arisen.
However, the Council's proposals allow for a three
year 'frozen' protection. This means your protected
pay will be frozen at the level on the day the scheme
comes in.
Your protected pay level will not qualify for increments
or pay rises in the usual negotiated pay rounds - but
they will be applied to your new base rate.
The Council says it plans to look at redeployment,
upskilling and employee development to limit loss of
pay, where this would be lawful.
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What if I am on 'lifetime' protection?
One of the improvements won by the unions was thet
so-called lifetime protection would be protected for
three years.
On a more general point the Branch's view is that Lifetime
Protection provisions for organisational reviews in
the future is defendable and should remain in place.
The Council currently propose to end the Lifetime Protection
Agreement on implementation of "Pay Modernisation".
The problem of lifetime protection has arisen in other
authorities through the equal pay and single status
process. It is argued that such protection can be used
as a comparator in equal pay claims and that such protection
may be unsupportable in terms of an equality proof pay
scheme.
The union won a legal case in 1995/96 to preserve the
local agreement on lifetime protection but times have
changed and we are one of the few branches that still
have such an agreement.
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What happens to working time payments?
It is proposed that a new set of Working Time Payments
will replace things such as Shift Allowance , irregular
hours payments, split shifts etc and will be calculated
separately from your base pay.
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Is there protection for members who would be due
an incremental step increase on 1 April 2010?
UNISON's understanding is that no protection will apply
as peoples' original contract would end on 31st March
and the new one commence 1st April so people would not
be on their new amount. If implementation does not happen
at 1st April then increments will be given as normal
because your original contract will still be in force.
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What about my pension?
If you are actually losing out on pensionable income,
you should consider contacting management about a Certificate
of Protection of Pension Benefits and your final pay
could be:
- the best year's pensionable pay from the last five
years up to date of retiral,
- or the best three year average from the last 13
years.
Because everyone's individual circumstances are
different you should take advice direct from the Lothian
Pension Fund 0131 529 4638
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Will there be an appeal system?
An Appeals System has been negotiated that will have
the involvement of Trade Union Reps as part of Appeals
Panel. The Council are insistent that Appeals can only
be dealt with AFTER implementation of the whole package
of proposals in April next year. UNISON will continue
to argue that obvious anomalies should be dealt with
prior to this.
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What happens now? Do we vote on this? Can we take
action?
Over the month of July UNISON will be consulting with
it's members over the proposals , through meetings mailings
etc. Once the consultation is complete and we have the
necessary legal advice we will seek to re-enter negotiations
with the Council.
Depending on the progress of any negotiations and on
advice from UNISON HQ and UNISON's legal advisers, there
are a number of options. No decision has been taken
on any of these yet and all are subject to legal and
UNISON HQ decisions. Among the options are...
- Accept that the package is the best that can be
achieved by negotiation and ballot all members (only
if scheme equality proof)
- Reject the whole package and ballot all members
(may be difficult if scheme equality proof - union
cannot stand in the way of an equality proofed scheme
on that basis alone)
- Ballot separately on Single Status and the other
conditions changes
- Reject any package and await a response from the
Council
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Will the Council impose the changes?
The Council's own briefing states it may at some point
choose to impose the scheme (as other Councils have)
by giving notice of dismissal and re-engagement by issuing
new contracts.
If that happens, UNISON would not rule out action against
imposition or action after imposition on behalf of members
unfairly affected.
Please note that the Council's own briefing
stresses that issuing new contracts would not
mean losing your continuity of service.
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If the Council give the 90 day notice and you are
dismissed and reinstated on the new contract is your
pay still protected for 3 years? Do you still have the
right to appeal?
If you are dismissed & reinstated, then the 3 year
protection period still applies. The right to appeal
would not be affected.
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