UNISON’s Edinburgh Branch Committee has instructed negotiators to seek to improve on the Council’s proposed terms for people seeking voluntary severance/redundancy.
Any job lost through any voluntary severance system will not be replaced and can only be viewed as a cut to jobs and services or additional work being piled on the staff left behind. We therefore must continue the campaign to oppose job losses in an effort to protect our members.
However, we do understand that many of our members may decide to leave their employment. With this in mind, we will seek to ensure the Council provides clarity to all members of staff to ensure that they are able to make an informed choice and we will be pushing for the best possible terms for any form of voluntary severance.
There are currently different terms and amounts depending on whether or not you are subject to organisational review or not and also whether you are part of the pension scheme. As such the issues for individual members will often be particular to them in terms of their personal circumstances and so general advice will not always be helpful. We would therefore advise members to consult with their managers and the Lothian Pension Scheme in the first instance.
UNISON will continue to support all members thought these difficult times.
We will also continue our campaigning with the Scottish and UK governments for proper funding for local government and an end to the savage cuts that have seen services cut to the bone and 40,000 council jobs lost across Scotland.