all members of the Labour Group
cc: Birmingham MPs and supporters of UNISON across Birmingham
People have been interested in the emails about the refuse workers’ dispute but I’ve received a lot of enquiries about what is happening with the homecare workers’ dispute. So here is an update. We’ve been silent for a reason.
Reminder of where we were at
On 31 January we submitted our own proposals to the Council to settle the dispute. Our proposals would have meant no compulsory redundancies and very small levels of losses, that we suggested should be mitigated via a reasonable mitigation payment.
Remember our proposals exactly met seven out of ten of the Council’s objections to our previous proposal, and we went a long way on the other three, and all we asked for was for the Council to show some flexibility. Also remember our proposals had cost savings for the Council of approximately £255,000
Following various meetings we have got to a point where the Council did broadly accept our rota proposals.
However there are a range of other matters that need to be agreed an put into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU).
What will be in the MOU?
The sorts of things that will be in the MOU (that will be signed by both parties) are below (note the list is not exhaustive):
- An agreed job description and the development of a career grade scheme
- A statement on the implementation of the Working Time Directive
- How the Council will give due consideration to requests for flexible working
- How the Council will deal with staff wanting to move from Extra Care Sheltered Housing (aka “the courts”) to patch working and vice versa
- Properly accounting for travel time
- Mitigation payments for people who lose money
- The number of compulsory redundancies
On some of the items above we have made a lot of progress and are close to final agreement. On some of the other items, most notably 6, 7 and 8, we are still some way apart.
We have drafted a skeleton MOU that needs more work and we will to negotiate some parts of it further.
On parts 6, 7 and 8 we are still some way apart we are as we believe this can be done with no compulsory redundancies but the Council have been quoting a figure of around 20, and that we can minimise the financial losses further.
Rather predictably the Council have thrown up spurious legal arguments around the travel time and mitigation issues.
Remember this is a Council that has failed to listen to UNISON in the past and screwed up Equal Pay (twice!), and has failed to listen to UNISON and Unite about the recent injunction that was lost.
It is the same officers who commissioned and provided flawed legal advice in these two areas who are creating spurious legal arguments. So forgive us if are a little sceptical about what they have to say.
However, we have agreed to “park” issues 6, 7 and 8 above whilst we carry out an exercise to get the preferences from staff about which of the new rotas on offer they would prefer.
Preference forms
We are working jointly with the Council to get all staff to complete their preference forms and return them for analysis. Once the analysis is done we can return to the trickier outstanding issues 6, 7 and 8. In the meantime we are working on developing the wording on the MOU on the other matters.
The aim is for us to meet with the Council on 14 March, by which time we hope all of the preference forms will have been completed and analysed. So you probably won’t get an email update until after this date. We’ve been silent as we’ve been trying to gather up the preference forms.
Other matters – the extra £5.6 million given by the government for Enablement Services
We have repeatedly asked the Council to explain to us how they will be spending the extra £5.6 million given by the government that is ring fenced for Enablement Services.
But the Council has been silent when we’ve asked this question. This continued silence puzzles us but you may recall the quote from Yes Minister where I quoted the 'Three Varieties of Civil Service Silence', which is the civil service’s last resort if completely cornered:
1. The silence when they do not want to tell you the facts: Discreet Silence.
2. The silence when they do not intend to take any action: Stubborn Silence.
3. The silence when you catch them out and they haven't a leg to stand on. They imply that they could vindicate themselves completely if only they were free to tell all, but they are too honourable to do so: Courageous Silence.
It seems astonishing that the Council doesn’t know how they will be spending all of this money, so we can only draw the conclusion that the silence of the officers is an example of silence number 1 (Discreet Silence) - the silence when they do not want to tell you the facts.
We believe members of the Labour Group could be asking this question and we will keep asking this question too.
If you are puzzled by the Yes Minister references and don’t know what it is, I’ve borrowed (and edited) the description from Wikipedia:
Yes Minister is a political satire British sitcom. Set principally in the private office of a British Cabinet minister in the fictional Department of Administrative Affairs in Whitehall, Yes Minister follows the ministerial career of Jim Hacker. His various struggles to formulate and enact policy or effect departmental changes are opposed by the British Civil Service, in particular his Permanent Secretary, Sir Humphrey Appleby. Many of the episodes revolve around proposals backed by Hacker but frustrated by Appleby, who uses a range of clever stratagems to defeat ministerial proposals while seeming to support them. Other episodes revolve around proposals promoted by Appleby but rejected by Hacker, which Appleby attempts by all means necessary to persuade Hacker to accept.
You draw your own conclusions as to why this reminds UNISON of Birmingham City Council.
The UNISON position
UNISON are still very firmly of the view that a resolution to the dispute can be found that will:
- Minimise or eliminate the losses to our low paid members
- Result in no compulsory redundancies
We continue to be ready to work with the Council to achieve this aim.
Regards
Ravi Subramanian
Regional Secretary
