Inside

Public Service Not Private Profit April 2013

What's happening with Job Evaluationand Terms & Conditions?

ReviewCity and County of Swansea

It is important to reiterate that the pay model has been imposed and will not be changed unless there is wholesale opposition to the modelby all trade union members via a ballot. Our legal advice also confirms that the pay model conforms with equality legislation. Joint unionshave requested 12months protection for thosemembers losing less than 10% of their salary, 18 months for those losing between 10% and19.99% and 2 years for those losing 20% or more.

On a separate note since the previous newsletter joint trade unions have been discussing outstanding terms and conditions items such asshift allowances and call out. Progress is being made and when we have a final outcome we will inform you.. We have also failed to reach

UNISON nursery nurses in Swansea schools held a protestoutside County Hall recently over the loss of thousands ofpounds from their pay following JE.

Under the new conditions around 170 nursery nurses andclassroom assistants will face swingeing pay cuts and reducedhours of work. The low-paid workers could lose between £3,000and £4,000 from their yearly salary.

agreement on the following policies: flexitime, redeployment, appeals,voluntary and flexible retirement, severe weather.

Contract changes?

UNISON alone has raised some serious concerns about contractual issueswhich would have serious affected all members. Again progress is beingmade and an update will appear in the next newsletter.

The Authority claims that 18% of staff will lose money because of singlestatus.This isprobablycorrect in termsof thepaymodel.Howeverwhenyouadd in the losses incurred as a result of proposed changes to terms andconditions we believe the final percentage losses to all staff will total at least40%. This takes into account mileage rate reduction, loss of retainer,reduction of hours, reduction in overtime rates to name but a few.

Delays to JE?Finally it has come to our attention that some people are of the opinion thatUnison is delaying implementation of job evaluation. Nothing could befurther from the truth.Wehavequite rightly raisedseriouscontractual issuesrecently, which were falsely tied to JE, but hopefully we are close toagreement on those. The main reason for the delay is the difficult issue ofequal pay.

The Authority has to decide how to treat the 800 equal pay claimants whorejected the equal pay offer in 2007. Also the Authority has to consider anypotential equal pay claims from new starters since 2007 plus those whohave submitted claims post March 2010. Quite rightly, given the seriousfinancial timesweareexperiencing, theAuthority is taking time todecide thebest way forward on this issue therefore this is more likely to have causeddelay rather than ourselves.

UNISON will continue to negotiate to move towards the level of pay ourmembers deserve, and will resist further changes to terms and conditionswhich will make our members lives harder.

Sports &Social2013

Sports &Social2013

10 Reasonsto Axe theHated Tax

10 Reasonsto Axe theHated Tax

Victory foranti-NazisVictory foranti-NazisStopping the Nazi'National Front' inMarch

the bedroom taxThe Evening Post recentlyreported on the case ofMegan Wheatland fromBonymaen.Megan is a recent widow andlives in a three-bedroomedhouse with her 13-year-olddaughter Deanndra, and iswaiting to see if the bedroomtax will affect her. She toldthe Evening Post she wassurviving on £40 a fortnightafter meeting household bills.

"I'm on bereaved parent'sallowance so it hasn'thappened to me yet, but weare already struggling. I amin the house with jumpersand a coat on, my daughterhas given up most of her out-of-school activities, likedrama and the Girl Guidesbecause I can't afford thesubs or the petrol to get herthere."

Megan is getting by, she says,thanks to support from herbrother and friends."They have been angels, but Iworry how I will able to paythem back."The 53-year old suffers fromarthritis, and while she islooking for work she says herillness makes it tough, andfear for the future is anadded burden.

"I don't sleep, and the othernight, if my daughter wasn'tasleep in the next room Iwouldn't have been here thenext morning.They are hitting the poorestin society, when theGovernment should beworking from the top down."

"The council put me in athree-bedroom house, andeven if there was somewheresmaller to move to I couldn'tafford the removal firm. I'vebeen here more than nineyears. My memories of myhusband are here because hedied here."

''They make you feel you areentitled to a roof over yourhead, but not to a home."

children. But the pressure will be on councils to refto do so.

5 They are already retreatingIain Duncan Smith has been forced to makeembarrassing concessions. Some foster carers wiexempted along with some of those serving inarmed forces—if they meet strict conditions. It showe can force them back. But around 99 percenthose who would have been hit by the tax still will bso we need to keep fighting.

6 It deepens the housing crisisThere aremore than twice asmany rooms in Britainthere are people. Welfare minister Lord Freudthree spare bedrooms in London plus a whole speight-bedroom mansion. The bedroom tax will pmore people out of council housing and make it eafor councils to sell the homes off. This will shift emore housing stock to private landlords—andchaos of the market.

7 It will make landlords richer

Thegovernment claims thebedroomtaxwill raise£million. That’s less than the£607million thanbailedbank RBS gave its top bankers in bonuses this yThe real winners will be private landlords. Mtenants forced into smaller homes on higher, privrents—and be forced to claim more in benefits aresult. This will go straight to the landlords.Rcontrols used to keep landlords in check until Marg

10 Reasonsto Axe the Tax10 Reasonsto Axe the Tax

Case Study: the impact ofthe hated tax

Get involved in the fightback—go to beneSwansea Neath Port Talbot Against Bedroo

https://www.facebook.com/groups/48542Swansea Anti-Cuts Campaign

https://www.facebook.com/groups/14196

The bedroom tax came into force in April and islikely to affect over 3,600 households inSwansea. These are households in socialhousing which, under government criteria, areconsidered to be ‘under-occupied’.

FromApril thesehouseholdswillhave to findanaverage £9-10 a week if they have a single‘spare’ room, £16-17 a week if they have morethan one. The extra for the bedroom tax will cutinto their weekly budget for food and otheressentials.

For council workers in Housing Benefits thismeans additional stress implementing a hatedtax, facing tenants victims to it and possiblybeing party to potential evictions. UnisonReview explains why you should oppose it andwhat you can do.

1 It snatches from the poorest

The bedroom tax hits people in council or social housingwho claim housing benefit—more than 650,000households. Theywill lose14percent of thebenefit if theyare deemed to have one spare room, and 25 percent fortwo or more. Households affected will lose an average of£14 a week and many will lose much more—well over£1,000 a year. Some tenants will be forced out of theirhomes.

2 The rooms aren’t ‘spare’

David Cameron has four bedrooms in Downing Streetand another ten in Chequers—all at our expense. But hebegrudges poor families every bit of space.Some peoplewill losemoney for having tiny box rooms.Childrenwill beexpected to sharewith siblings regardless of gender untiltheyare 12, and siblingsof the samesexuntil theyare 16.If their parents are separated, children will have to sleepon the couch when staying with one parent.

3 There’s nowhere to move to

Some4,700 tenantswill be hit by the bedroom tax inHull.But there are only 73 smaller council homes in the town.Tory and Labour governments have spent three decadesgetting rid of council housing and not buildingmore. Nowthey are punishing tenants for having nowhere to go.

4 It hits disabled people hardThere are disabled adults in more than two thirds of thehouseholds that will be hit by the bedroom tax anddisabled children in more. Disabled people are morelikely to need their own room and to need benefits. Theycould lose homes that are specially adapted to suit theirconditions. The government has put in place just £30million tohelpdisabledclaimantsadapt—a tiny fractionofthe money it is taking away from them. Under pressure,welfare minister Iain Duncan Smith has “clarified” thatcouncils can make exceptions for some disabled

There are things the Council and otheThey could simply classify properties as 1-b

Thiswould exemptSwansea tenants from theThey could publicly that they will not evict t

would spare tenants the stress of worrying a••

The NF in South Wales in 2013:Nazism and violence are open

Swansea says no to theNazi National FrontFour-hundred people came together in March under the banner of SwanseaUnited Against Fascism (UAF), to show the National Front (NF) that their racistand fascist filth were not welcome here. The NF had called a ‘white-pride’ marchin the city a couple of weeks earlier. Swansea UAF organised a brilliant broad-based counter-demonstration in response at short notice.

To loud cheers Peter Hain MP told the assembled demonstrators that “fascismhas no place in Swansea, no place in Wales and no place in our society”.

Amarjite Singh, President of the Wales Trades Union Congress and from thepostal-workers CWU union, declared that the trade union movement had aproud record of fighting against racism and fascism.

He was followed during the afternoon by speakers from many trade unions,including the general union Unite, the local government workers’ union UNISON,the railway workers’ RMT, the teachers’ NUT, the postal workers’ UCW and thecivil servants’ PCS. LGBT Swansea also joined the crowd and called on allthose oppressed by society to unite in opposition to racism and fascism.

Leading members of the Labour Party and Plaid Cymru spoke too. DavidPhillips (pictured above), Leader of Swansea Council, explained how Councilofficers had done all they could to prevent the fascist NF from marching throughSwansea’s streets: "We have made the Council's position clear. Fascists are notwelcome here. We refused permission for them to be on council land and theyare only here because of legal threats against the Council"

He later announced that Swansea Council would be seeking legal grounds forrefusing any future fascist attempt to demonstrate in the City.

The efforts to stop them marching had been largely successful. The 60-odd NFsupporters, mostly from England, had been escorted by the police, by bus, to anobscure spot in a pen behind the Museum. For 45 minutes they were forced tolisten to 400 anti-fascists chanting “there are many, many more of us that you”.This was a far cry from the NF’s declared aim of a 'white pride' march throughthe streets of the city.

A heartening sight was the large number of young people from Swansea whojoined the demo, including a good number of black and Asian people. This wasa reflection of the work that the National Union of Students had put intoorganising support for the UAF demo. But it wasn’t just students. Many ofSwansea’s young citizens, black and white, turned out to show their disgust forfascism.

After less than an hour the National Front supporters were bussed back to therailway station bythe police, to the drumming of thelocal samba band and chants of“Swansea streets are our streets.”In a victory speech when theNF had gone Marianne Owens,Vice President of PCS Walessaid, "South Wales has a proudtradition of fighting fascism fromstopping Mosely in the 30's andvolunteers fighting Franco in Spainthrough to the present day. In thelast three years we have seen offthe EDL twice and now the NaziNF. We are upholding thetradition."

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Thatcher abolished them in 1988. We should fight toget them back.

8 It’s part of a wider attackThe Tories plan to slash council tax benefits from Apriland replace Disability Living Allowance with thestingier Personal Independence Payment. Hundredsof thousands of claimants will be “re-assessed” bymoney-grabbing firm, Atos. Most working age benefitsare frozen below inflation. The Tories’ Universal Creditwill cap benefits and mean hundreds of families won’tbe able to afford to live in London. Children havealready been pulled out of schools in London and sentto the north of England. Beating the bedroom tax canhelp to thwart the Tories’ benefits blitz.

9Councils could block the taxSome housing associations have reclassifiedbedrooms as box-rooms so they won’t be classed as“spare”. Dundee council has voted to say it won’t evictanyone who can’t pay the bedroom tax. Councils andlandlords will be expected to evict poor tenants fromtheir homeswhen they fall behind on rent. But they canbe put under pressure to say no.

10Workers can stop evictionsIn Spain unions of locksmiths and firefighters voted torefuse to evict people who can’t pay mortgages. Thefirefighters’ slogan is, “We rescue people, not banks”.This is the kind of movement we have to build againstthe bedroom tax and benefits cap.

efitjustice.wordpress.comom Tax26158178178/

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er social housing landlords can do:bedroom. This has been done by other social-landlords.e bedroom taxandspare themahugecut to their incometenants for not being able to pay the bedroom tax. Thisabout losing their homes.

This newsletter is produced by the City and County of Swansea Unison Branch. Any letters, comments or suggestions for articles should be posted to the branch addressor emailed to Unison@swansea.gov.uk. Correspondence is not guaranteed to be published and contents may not necessarily reflect Unison policy.

Spor ts & Socia l websi te : www.suss.me.uk www.unison.co.uk

Contact us: Unison Office The Guildhall Swansea SA1 4PE01792 635271 unison@swansea.gov.uk

Unison has over 100 trained union reps throughout the council, schools andFEcolleges.Wewill advise,support and represent you collectively and individually on issues from sickness, disciplinaries to legalmatters insideandoutside theworkplace. If youneedadviceor representationpleasecontact theSeniorSteward(s) for your department below or go to your workplace steward. Alternatively please contact thebranch office.

Branch Secretary: Mike Davies / Asst. Secretary: Ian Alexander

Social ServicesAlison O'Kane - 07856 641234Alison Davies - 07941 757853Martin Chapman - 01792 635271EducationPat Lopez - 07557 560097Mark Otten - 07789 485009Eve Morse - 07532 232873 (after 3.30 pm)Chris Bell - 07967 551025

Regeneration/HousingJohn Llewellyn - 07557 560093Roger Owen - 07847 942458Gower CollegeRon Job - 07963 454041ResourcesGareth Parry - 07813 534627HousingSallyanne Taylor - 07825 401711YO

URUNION

YOURUNION

@SwanseaUNISON27A new Twitter page forUNISON YoungMembers working forCity & County ofSwansea has been setup. If any YoungMembers would like toget involved in thebranch please contactBenjamin Johns (Tel:07598 251181)

Booking forms are available on the Sports & Social website (www.suss.me.uk). If anyone wouldlike further information with regards to any of the trips/events listed or about how to join Sports &Social, please contact Stuart Page at stuart.page@swansea.gov.uk or on 07854 974130.

***Please note that you must be a Unison member for your child to be eligible to attendthe Christmas Party. Any of the above trips can also be paid for by instalments

Disneyland Paris (FULLY BOOKED) - May 26th – 29th 2013Prices from £140pp

Stratford Upon Avon - June 22ndPrices from £4.00

Oxford Day Trip - August 17thPrices from £4.00

Ffos Las: Real Ale Festival - September 15thPrices from £12.00

London Day Trip - November 16thPrices from £9.00

Children’s Christmas Party*** - December 7th (tbc)Price £4.00 (tbc)

Bath Christmas Market - December 14thPrices from £5.00

In Memory

It is with great sadness thatwe learned of the death oftwo of our Swansea UnisonBranch colleagues.Heather Barry was aBranch Steward whoworked in RosecrossResidential Home. PeterBockarie was a social-worker and a contact forour black and ethnicminority members.

From our perspective wewould like to pass on ourcondolences to Heather’sand Peter’s families andacknowledge the help andsupport they provided toUnison members as well asto fellow Unison colleagueswithin the Branch.

Use your vote in the NEC elections!The elections for the NEC of Unison start on Monday 22 April and run until Friday 24 May.These elections are important as Unison is the biggest public sector union in Britain. They giveus a chance to vote for the leadership we feel is best suited to stand up for members in thefuture.

In the context of real pay cut being cut by 20 percent since 2008; jobs axed leaving fewerpeople with ever greater workloads; public services being destroyed and the NHS under threatof ever greater privatisation these elections come at an important time.All members are encouraged to vote to influence the course of our union in the future.

Social2013

Sports&