The final offer retained the main elements of the first offer:
– EOIIs and higher grades would receive their increment from 1st August 2009
– TG1, TG2, Assistant Scientific officer and other specialist grades would also receive their increment from August 2009
– AA, AOs and analogous grades not mentioned above would receive their increment not in August 2009 but in February 2010. This deferral is undoubtedly unfair but was an improvement on management’s original proposal to pay no increment to these grades because of the Equal Pay settlement.
– Points below the max on the EO2 scales and above will be increased by £270. This could have been equated to a 1% rise but the flat rate has been secured as its delivers more to the lower paid grades ie. those on less than £27,000 per annum.
– A long standing anomaly regarding PTO overtime rates will be equalised onto Band 1 rates and deliver the equivalent of double time on Saturday rather than the current time and a half.
The final offer now contains the improved elements of:
– £270 for those on the max points. However, disappointingly, this has not been consolidated and is in effect a one-off payment.
– Annual leave entitlement is increased to 30 days leave after 5 years service rather than the current 10 years service.
The Executive therefore considered the improvements our negotiators were able to achieve and believe it is the best we could achieve in negotiations. The alternative was also considered: management side are likely to impose an increment on those not yet on their max point with no cost of living rise.
Also as the employer has withdrawn from a long standing agreement to pay increments we believe we are nearing a dispute situation on 2010 pay later this year and that members would wish to concentrate on that approaching battle. Branches are currently voting on the offer and these returns will be considered by the Executive Committee on 24th May.
Like most other Governmental bodies, the WELB have placed a moratorium on the recruitment of staff as a means to met the stringent efficiency gains agreed by the Stormont parties in their three-year Comprehensive Spending Review (May 2008- April 2011). The impact of this has been to place an ever greater burden on those staff remaining on to provide front-line services.
The one-day public-sector strike on 30 November is expected to involve nearly four million workers – the biggest single day of industrial action in Britain’s history. In the face of the Con-Dem coalition’s savage austerity, public-sector workers are preparing for a hard struggle to defend pensions, services, pay and conditions. This represents a potentially momentous turning point.
The Fianna Fail/Green Party government, along with the employers, have signalled their intention to shift the burden of the economic crisis onto the shoulders of PAYE workers. STEPHEN BOYD argues that militant industrial action linked to a campaign to reclaim the unions for the members, is the only way these attacks can be resisted.