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Also as the employer has withdrawn from a long standing agreement to pay increments we believe we are nearing a dispute situation on 2010 pay later this year and that members would wish to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.
In recent months, millions of women worldwide have risen up to resist the devastating effect that the economic crisis is having on their lives. Hundreds of thousands of super-exploited textile and other workers in Bangladesh, China, Cambodia and elsewhere have participated in a wave of strikes for higher wages which spread rapidly from one Asian country to another. Millions of women workers have taken part in general strikes in France, Spain, Greece and Portugal, and in the huge protests against public sector attacks which have swept across Europe.
The Budget being prepared by all the parties in the Assembly Executive is truly shocking – the scale of the cuts will result in tens of thousands of jobs losses, closures of schools, hospitals, cancer units, cuts to bus routes, transport for the elderly, the disabled and children, the introduction of charges in the health service, increase in fees in further and higher education, less teachers, less classroom assistants for special needs children in schools, school bus services scrapped, school meals funding cut, thousands of hospital staff sacked, fire stations and fire brigade services downgraded, pay cuts for civil service workers, increased parking charges, privatisation of car parks, bus and train routes cut, higher train and bus fares....
There are reports that the ConDem government is considering cutting Corporation Tax rates in Northern Ireland. This follows ongoing demands from all the mainstream parties for a reduction in the current baseline rates of 28% for big businesses and 21% for those with a turnover of less than £300,000. The parties claim that this will enable Northern Ireland to compete with the Republic of Ireland in attracting investment (the rate in the South is 12.5%).
Anti-water charges campaigner Paddy Meehan has attacked statements made by two MLA’s speaking on the BBC’s The Politics Show as “supporting the imposition of water charges and the effective privatisation of the water service.”