“Enough is Enough!” Unions rally together to reject pay deal

Thursday 18 January 2018

Jersey’s unions have joined forces to try and stop a multi-million-pound ‘shake up’ of the public sector, which has left some employees feeling “shocked”, “helpless” and “undervalued.”

Around 250 people attended a combined union meeting at Hautlieu School last night – with around 1,300 more clicking into the live video stream of the event on Facebook - to hear more information on the final pay offer put forward by the States Employment Board.

The controversial ‘Workforce Modernisation Programme’ which States employees first heard details of in November 2017, seeks to overhaul public sector workers hours, pay and pensions to make way for a ‘fairer system’ of only 10 pay bands and one set of terms and conditions for all. 

Pictured: Union representatives (left to right) Kenny McNeil, Bob King, Terry Renouf, Nick Corbel, Jason Cronin, Mick Robbins.

It's being led by the new States Chief Executive Charlie Parker, and a team of advisers from the UK at a cost of more than £700,000. 

The States team behind the changes say that 96% of the workers affected will see a pensionable pay 'rise', with the annual increases locked in until 2020. Pensionable pay includes regular, and permanent, payments which are recognised by the pension scheme - including basic pay and shift pay for example, but not overtime, which would be extra. 

But for the majority, it’s not such good news. 3,229 civil servants are being offered an increase of 3.3% in pensionable pay in total by 2020, which is very unlikely to keep pace with inflation. If the cost of living continues to rise by around 3% year-on-year – as it did in the last quarter – then those thousands of civil servants, along with nurses and midwives and manual workers could actually see their pay fall by 2020.

Video: JCSA Prospect Vice-President, Mick Robbins, explains the 'real pay' deal on offer to States employees 

Meanwhile, 185 staff will actually see their pensionable pay fall, a drop which will only be exacerbated by inflation. 

The JCSA Prospect Vice-President Mick Robbins, explained to the audience how the absence of RPI within the 2017-2020 deal could see States employees missing out on thousands of pounds.

He revealed that he’s received letters from union members saying the harsh reality of the pay deal has left them “shocked”, “stressed” and “undervalued”, which was greeted with nodding heads and words of agreement from the audience.

Video: Mick Robbins says workers have been left feeling vulnerable - with some even having to choose between eating or having the heating on. 

The Unions are concerned with three aspects of the programme. These include changes to pay, pensions and how the States Employment Board (SEB) has reviewed jobs in order to deliver ‘equal pay for equal value’. 

JCSA Prospect Negotiating Officer, Bob King, criticised the evaluation process, describing it as systematically wrong, unscientific and simply “a fiddle.” The union representative told the audience that the first evaluation didn’t work so the second one essentially “compressed numbers.”

Kenny McNeil from the Royal College of Nursing explained how ‘workforce modernisation’ came about during a nurse’s pay offer in 2014 to solve long-standing problems between health workers pay scales, but he said: “What we didn’t sign up for was to see many of our public sector colleagues to have life changing conditions to their pay and employment.”

Video: Jason Cronin from the Jersey Nursing Association says "enough is enough."

 The other representative from the Health industry on the union panel - Jason Cronin from the Jersey Nursing Association – called for “Enough bullying, enough giving more for less, enough working cheaply on call... enough of being taken for granted and undervalued.” He urged union members to use their vote to “send out a strong message to the new [States] Chief Executive”, who apparently described the job evaluation system as a “1980’s tool to deal with 1980’s problems,” according to Bob King.

Union members will be balloted on the final pay offer over the next few weeks. The unions have warned that if the States doesn’t listen to the workers’ vote, they will have no option but to take industrial action.