Dear Member
Hi again! We hope you had an enjoyable weekend with some time to relax if you were off and for those of you who work at weekends, we hope you have some well deserved time to rest soon.
During Saturday’s Government press conference, Communities secretary, Robert Jenrick announced that £76 million would be given to charities to enable them to support those suffering domestic abuse and modern slavery, rough sleepers and vulnerable children. Whilst this is very much welcomed it will offer little safety or immediate comfort if you are in this situation right now. To this end, we are sharing with you the contact details of agencies who are ready to provide support should you or anyone you know require it.
National Domestic Abuse Helpline: 0800 2000 247
NSPCC: 0808 800 5000
Shelter: 0808 800 4444
Modern slavery helpline: 08000 121 700
We also note the launch of the Liverpool city region campaign against domestic abuse and provide the link here for you for information. https://wirralview.com/news/merseyside-campaign-highlights-domestic-abuse-support-during-covid-19
Extra funding for Care Worker’s- another Wirral Unison victory!
Today, the Council have announced an extra £12 million to support Care Workers. We applaud the Council for making this investment and we are particularly delighted that the Council expect that Care Workers who are off work as a result of Covid-19 related reasons receive full sick pay. We know that many of our members who are absent from work at the moment have been surviving on statutory sick pay (SSP) or in some cases nothing at all and today’s news should provide real relief. We will be working with the Council to ensure that this is implemented fairly and transparently. This extra funding applies to Care Workers working for providers on behalf of Wirral Council.
Care Workers and the Real Living Wage- more good news!
Last month following a successful campaign by Wirral Unison, the Council announced that they would be funding the Real Living Wage for Care Workers for the next 6 months. We welcomed this but also called for it to be in place on a permanent basis. We are pleased to announce that the Council have now agreed to fund this pay rise until the end of March 2021 and have pledged to review this commitment every year.
Unfortunately, we know that not every provider in Wirral has agreed to implement the Real Living Wage as yet and we will be working with the Council to ensure that as many Care Workers as possible in Wirral receive this pay increase.
Both these announcements are to be welcomed but we know that there is still much work to be done to ensure all our members receive the benefits. Please contact us if this affects you, numbers and emails addresses are as ever at the bottom of this email.
Re-opening of services
We are aware that Boris Johnson is due to make an announcement at the end of this week regarding the possible lifting of lockdown restrictions. It has today emerged that some of the proposed plans around how lifting lockdown restrictions would work have been leaked to the media and other bodies. The TUC have noted that there are ‘huge gaps’ in the Government’s plans and that there is an over reliance on employers acting in the best interest of their employees safety. We wrote in our email last week that we have agreed with the Council that there will be meaningful consultation on proposed re-opening of services with health and safety at the heart of these discussions. We will be writing out to other employers this week to seek similar assurances. We are also aware that some discussions are taking place relating to at least a partial re-opening of schools on or around 1 June. As with other services, we will ensure that consultation takes place prior to this and that a safe, negotiated position is reached. We are clear that the health, safety and wellbeing of our members must be the priority when considering how we can move out of lockdown and into a new way of working.
Parks
Further to our email on Friday, we have had discussion with the Council regarding safety being in place for the increased tasks in parks services. This is at a restricted level and appropriate safety measures have been agreed including one driver per van, the provision of appropriate PPE and reducing the regularity of certain measures such as grass cutting. Unison is the union that takes health and safety seriously and we are meeting again with management on Thursday for further discussions. We are also calling an online meeting for a our members in parks on Wednesday (6 May) at 12pm and will send out email invites to this meeting for all members effected.
Local Government Pay Offer
Please see below the latest statement from Unison’s national pay negotiators in relation to ongoing local government pay talks for 2020/21.
"UNISON’s NJC committee, which oversees the NJC pay negotiations and campaign on behalf of our local government and schools members for England, Cymru/Wales and Northern Ireland, met on Friday to consider the local government employers’ pay offer of 2.75%, an increase of one day on the minimum level of annual leave, and future discussions on stress and the minimum wage.
The committee was clear that, while the employers have said this is their final offer, key matters remain unresolved. As part of their offer, the employers said they would approach central government for more money for local government pay 2020-21.
The unions have asked for more detail on what the employers plan to ask for, and that this is on a joint employer-union basis.
Until we know central government’s response to the approach, we are not yet in a position to consult our members for their views on the pay offer.
We are writing to the Local Government Association, the Welsh Local Government Association and the Northern Ireland Local Government Association, who are responsible for making the approach to government for more money, making our position clear.
Until we know what extra money will be available, we have not exhausted the negotiation process.
As key workers, local government and school staff are in the forefront of the battle against COVID-19. So they deserve proper recognition and reward. UNISON will continue to campaign hard for these workers and we urge the government to provide increased funding to allow local government to give all workers a decent pay rise.”
We hope that you are all keeping safe and well and that you continue to find our updates helpful. Please get in touch with any queries at all.
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Take care of yourselves and each other and we will be back with another update for you all tomorrow.
In solidarity!
Lois and Dave
Dave: davidnjones@wirral.gov.uk 07880199539
Lois: loisfounds1@wirral.gov.uk 07384512521
Published on: May 5, 2020