10 January: Got an appeal? Contact us right away!
If you have an appeal lodged and your hearing is
scheduled with a date set, please contact the Branch
at the earliest opportunity.
"This will enable us to provide you with the
representation and advice required", says service
conditions officer Tam McKirdy.
"We also suggest you contact the Modernising
Pay Team and request a copy of the assessment panel's
notes".
6 June 2011: Job Evaluation
Appeals
Over 300 job evaluation appeals were submitted in
the wake of pay modernisation. At the moment these
posts are being re-assessed by the council's job
evaluation team in light of the information supplied
by both line managers and staff.
Some have been completed and you may well have
had a letter indicating the outcome of that assessment
- if you are not happy with it you should advise
UNISON that you wish to carry on to the formal appeal
hearing - just e-mail your details to the branch
at branchoffice @unison- edinburgh.org.uk or contact
your local steward.
We will be keeping a close eye on the outcomes
of these initial assessments as this will be an
indicator of whether the job evaluation scheme stands
up to scrutiny or not. It is expected that the first
Appeals will begin at the end of June and they will
run for about six to nine months.
8 Nov 2010: APPEALS GUIDANCE:
Guidance for members and stewards for submitting
appeals. UNISON Deadline 17 December 2010
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)
5 July: DISMISSAL AND RE-ENGAGEMENT
Almost 5,000 people protected their legal rights
by not signing up to 'Modernising Pay' voluntarily
but now the situation is different.
Letters from the Council are now going out to give
notice to terminate your current contract and offering
you re-engagement. UNISON advice is you must
accept this offer, albeit under duress, to keep
your job.
If the details of your current job are wrong on
the letter, contact your manager immediately.
As
the council tries to get you to volunteer to give
up your contract, UNISON says 'Don't Sign First
Time' to keep your legal rights. Special UNISON
News May 2010 (pdf)
DON'T
SIGN FIRST TIME
New UNISONNews
Modernising Pay Update
- 5 March 2010:
GMB Ballot: Joint staff update from the City of
Edinburgh Council, UNISON and Unite the Union
UNISON urges council to negotiate, not impose
Special
briefing issued on Modernising Pay: Up to date advice
on what happens next.. (pdf)
UNISON calls for real talks as council serves
notice on 'Modernising Pay'.
Consultation brings clear rejection of proposals
UPDATE
1 November 2009: The Branch carried out a lengthy
and wide ranging consultation throughout August
and September including nearly 40 meetings of members,
online enquiry forms and telephone queries.
“This has been one of the largest, most worthwhile
and constructive exercises we have ever done”, said
Kevin Duguid, Service Conditions Co-ordinator. “The
overwhelming majority of our members have said very
clearly that they reject the package of proposals
as they stand”. “We have given a detailed response
to Council reflecting that and we await a formal
response from them. Our colleagues in our sister
unions Unite & GMB have also rejected the proposals.”
The position as of today is as follows:-
1) An updated UNISON bulletin to all 9,000 members
arrived from the printers on Friday 30 October and
will come out this week. That will cover all of
the issues so far and will be posted on the website
from Wednesday 4 November. Further bulletins will
follow later in the month as the Council's response
becomes clearer.
2) The union has just receieved the Council's response
and this will be analysed in detail and further
reports will follow.
3) There are complex legal issues involved and
UNISON cannot always report on these due to legal
restrictions. However the union has had numerous
meetings with legal and other advisers. At this
stage, our advice is that, alongside all the other
problems with the Council's proposals, they do not
meet the legal equality criteria. Further updates
on this will follow.
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Council plans 'fail to meet equality criteria'
14 August 2009: UNISON is taking further
advice as specialist reports suggest 'Modernising
Pay' will not deliver on equality. As reported before,
for legal reasons the union cannot ballot on a scheme
that is not 'equality proof'. The issue is complicated
by the Council adding conditions changes on top
of the job evaluation process. The Branch is now
taking further advice from national officials, inlcuding
whether we can have a separate ballot on the conditions
aspect.
Alongside this, the Branch is collating all the
views gathered from the 21 consultation meetings
with members over the last three weeks, before taking
those views back into negotiations with the Council.
Look out for more details.
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Branch Consultation
26 June 2009: The City of Edinburgh Council
has begun briefing and writing to staff about 'Modernising
Pay'. This could be the biggest change in pay and
conditions we have ever seen.
We are currently writing to members to tell then
how UNISON is going to consult its members on the
Council's proposals.
The proposals cover two main areas. The first is
the outcome of job evaluation which affects your
grade and pay. The other is a host of other changes
to conditions the council wants to implement.
PLEASE NOTE: These are proposals from
the Council. It is the Council that is bringing
forward the plans and as yet there is no agreement
with the unions. Over the next few weeks we
will be putting the following on the website:
It is the Council's responsibility to brief you and
answer your questions. We would urge you to contact
management in the first place because information
may be quite specific from one employee to another.
But we know members will also want to consult their
union. However, our office could not cope with thousands
of calls on this issue while still allowing staff
and branch officers to work on other issues. That
is why we are asking you to:-