Members of UNISON Liverpool City branch have voted to accept a new set of local allowances with Liverpool Council. The new allowances take effect from 01 July 2015.

The new arrangements will mean:

  • Irregular Hours Working will be paid at 10%
  • Shift working will be paid at 15%
  • Standby will be paid at £20 per session (currently £26 per session)
  • Special Allowance and Unavoidable Split Shift or Split Duty working will be replaced with Standby or Shift Payments.
  • Nightworking hours will be reclassified as 10pm to 8am (currently 8pm to 6am)
  • Approved Mental Health Practitioner payments will be incorporated into salary.

Whilst some members will not benefit as much as others, no-one will lose any allowances they are eligible for.

We believe we have negotiated the best deal possible for our members.

The original proposals included for the complete removal of a Standby payment. We argued for a stand by payment to be retained, albeit at a slightly reduced rate; and to support an increase in their proposed Shift Allowance of 9.5% to 15% - (improving the shift allowance rate benefits considerably more lower paid, predominantly women workers.)

WHAT WAS WRONG WITH THE OLD/CURRENT SYSTEM?

The current system is complex and unwieldy and has led to overpayment and underpayments, in some cases quite significant. A few examples below help explain why the system was broken:

  • Some employees have been paid an irregular hours payment when payment for weekend working or night working would have been more appropriate.
  • Currently there are approximately 30 different levels of shift and irregular hours payments – what was paid depended on the job role, grade and hours worked.

WHAT HAPPENS TO WEEKENDS AND NIGHT RATE?

Night working allowance and weekend allowance have both been paid as an irregular hours payment. This is wrong. Night working and weekend working are separate national allowances.

The new proposals mean that:

  • If an employee works nights over a weekend, they will receive NJC weekend working allowance and either night work or shift allowance depending on their rota.
  • Please note that an employee in receipt of night allowance or shift allowance cannot receive irregular hours working payments.

WHO VOTED?

Only members of UNISON Liverpool City who are employed by Liverpool Council were balloted.

BALLOT RESULTS

Of those members of UNISON Liverpool City who voted:

89% voted to accept

11% voted to reject

A small number of papers were received after the deadline, these were overwhelmingly in support of the proposals. The overall turnout was 10.5%

Why ballot all UNISON members employed by the Council – not all receive allowances?

Those members who receive national allowances only, would have been affected if the result had been to reject the proposals. This is because the Council intended to review all allowances, including national allowances, if agreement couldn’t be reached on a way forward.

Members not currently in receipt of allowances may become eligible in the future, e.g. as a result of a service review.

For these reasons we believed that balloting all eligible members was the only fair thing to do.

WHY WERE THE BALLOT PAPERS RECEIVED LATE?

We know that there was a delay in members receiving their ballot paper.

We arranged for the ballot papers to be franked and posted and got everything to Royal Mail in good time. What we weren't told was that the post was treated as bulk post and sent to London for processing - hence the delay.

As a result we extended the deadline for ballot papers to be returned; most ballots were received before the second deadline.

However we are reviewing arrangements to take account of this situation to ensure it doesn’t happen again. We apologise to members if they received their mail late, but this was due to circumstances beyond our control.

CONSOLIDATED ALLOWANCES

The Council are making offers to resolve the outstanding Consolidated Allowances issue.

This process began back in February when the Council wrote to a number of staff, including UNISON members, inviting staff to complete a proforma if they believed they were affected by the issue. Our advice to UNISON members has been to complete and return the proformas. The Council then review whether an offer can be made.

The offers are being brokered through ACAS, however you are still entitled to ask for advice from your union.

If you have been made an offer and are unsure of how to proceed, please do not hesitate to get in touch with the UNISON branch office. We will provide relevant advice.

“I work shifts and say ‘yes please’ to 15% shift allowance. This is welcome, every little helps.”

Flo Price – Care Worker

To date, approximately £700,000 has been paid out to UNISON members as part of the resolution of the Consolidated Allowance issue. It pays to be in UNISON.

Letter received from North West Regional Secretary:

03 June 2015

Ms. B. Hennessy

Branch Secretary

Liverpool City Branch UNISON

Dear Babs

I would like to offer my thanks to you and your Branch Officer team for the work you have done in delivering a new set of local allowances for members in Liverpool City Council.

I know that the delay in progressing this matter whilst we awaited legal advice on the proposed package caused the branch some difficulties, particularly in the face of threats from the employer to withdrawn the proposals and impose lesser terms on our members, probably by dismissing and re-engaging the workforce.

That the branch held firm is a great credit to yourselves. As you will know, it is extremely important that all proposed packages are reviewed by our legal team to ensure that they are not in any way discriminatory. UNISON is rightly proud of our commitment to equalities and so we take great care when agreeing to proposals that change the terms and conditions of UNISON members.

I believe that the package you managed to negotiate will allow members to go forward with a much simplified and fairer set of local allowances than previously applied and that many UNISON members will gain as a result of your efforts.

Yours sincerely


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