Judy McKnight's Napolog

We presented our pay claim to the Employers at the NNC on Wednesday 23 Jan and they have agreed to come back with an initial response at the NNC meeting on 4 March.

On the particularly vexed issue of increments, we made clear the level of anger and the sense of betrayal that members felt as a result of the announcements that increments would not be paid from April pending the outcome of the pay negotiations. We made clear that we would consider appropriate action if this matter was not resolved through negotiations.

The Employers re-emphasised the fact that there would be affordability issues this year in relation to any pay increase, and increments needed to be included in the overall “pot” available for pay increases. The Employers accept that staff have a contractual right to increments but state that the contractual right does not specify the amount of the increment.

They nevertheless agreed to “fast track” discussions with us on the issue of increments and on what should be payable to staff from 1 April 2008.

They have agreed to “best intentions” to find an agreed way forward by the time of the next NNC on 4 March. That timing will allow for payments in April pay, assuming we can find an agreed way forward.

Posted by jmcknight at 10:55 AM | Comments (0)

January 22, 2008

Pay and Increments

Tomorrow, January 23, is the National Negotiating Committee when we will be presenting our pay claim to the Employers. We will also be seeking assurances that existing agreements will be honoured in respect of the payment of annual increments from 1 April 2008.

Here is a copy of the claim as submitted to the employers. It is also reproduced in full below.

Download file

Members will be kept informed of the outcome of tomorrow’s NNC. Napo’s NEC meets on Friday and will also receive an up to date report.

Napo is clear that we will not allow the Employers to refuse to pay increments from 1 April. If we have to take legal action to protect members interests we are prepared to do so.

If it comes to taking industrial action over pay negotiations this year we also hope that members are behind us and will support action should it prove necessary to secure a decent pay increase.

Continue reading "Pay and Increments"

Posted by jmcknight at 06:42 PM | Comments (0)

January 09, 2008

Public Sector Pay

Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling yesterday set out their plans for three year deals for public sector pay.

Alistair Darling said at the No 10 Press Conference:

“Now we remain committed to creating a platform of stability and we will continue to do that as we have in the past year with public sector pay. And as I said this morning our aim is to have awards that are consistent with the achievement of the inflation target of 2 percent, that they are affordable, but that we want to move towards a position where we have long-term pay awards because we believe they would be good for public service employees and their families, they would provide stability and certainty for the economy and of course Departments which have had three year settlements for some time now would be able to plan much more efficiently.”

There is nothing necessarily wrong with a three year pay deal but it must depend on the terms.

It is also ironic to hear Ministers talking about the certainty of a three year deal, when Probation Boards have to live with getting their budgets on a year to year basis.

I was quoted in this morning’s Financial Times saying that we could be heading for a “punch up”.

Not very “Napo” language, or “FT” language for that matter, but I do wonder what has happened to this Government.

The way they are treating the police and prison officers is very heavy handed and likely to lose the Government public support.

Who is advising them?

I am old enough to have been a trade union official in the 1970’s, and there are uncanny resemblances to the break down in relations between unions and Government that led to the 1979 winter of discontent.

No wants another winter of discontent but Napo, along with other unions, cannot sit back and allow the Government to ride roughshod over due negotiating processes.

Posted by jmcknight at 07:56 PM | Comments (0)

January 02, 2008

Happy New Year

Happy New Year and I hope you all had a great Christmas break.

2008 holds lots of challenges for us.

In the Probation Service, we face a fight on cuts, localised attacks on conditions of service and complex negotiations to secure acceptable new training arrangements, while the threat of privatisation and the nonsense of NOMS continue to hang over us. For CAFCASS, as well as the Probation Service, we face the the prospect of difficult pay negotiations this year.

I attach a copy of a letter I sent to Jack Straw just before Christmas covering a range of our concerns on the Probation Service issues.

Continue reading "Happy New Year"

Posted by jmcknight at 09:51 AM | Comments (0)