Council care staff prepared to strike over redundancies

Oct 7 2007 by Larry Neild, Liverpool Daily Post

HUNDREDS of city council home help staff have been called to a mass meeting on Monday in a dispute union leaders say could lead to industrial action.

They are in the frontline of a new redundancy scheme for all Liverpool council workers, which angry union leaders say will leave long-serving staff thousands of pounds out of pocket.

Officials of Unison and the GMB say feelings among staff are running high and the dispute could lead to demands for industrial action.

The unions have already lodged a formal grievance with the council over a redundancy programme which will see up to 130 of the 600 home carers made redundant.

They want staff to be given a month’s pay for every year of service, to a maximum of 25 years – effectively two years’ pay as a redundancy package.

But that has been rejected by the council, saying the city could not afford the pay-outs.

Staff yesterday received details of the new voluntary severance scheme, using payment figures based on a formula not yet agreed by politicians.

The plan will not be put before councillors until a city council meeting on October 17.

But the council insists it has to change its rules for voluntary severance pay to comply with new anti-age discrimination laws which prohibit different rates for people aged over 50 and those under 50.

But Angela Blundell, secretary of the council’s Joint Shop Stewards Committee said: “The proposed scheme will be inferior for many staff, particularly those with longer service.

“It is capped at 20 years so people who have been here much longer stand to lose considerably.

“The council has called for around 130 voluntary redundancies among home care workers and they have sent out severance terms based on the scheme, even though it has yet to be approved.

“We have submitted a grievance and we are awaiting a response.” A council spokesman said last night: “All councils are having to introduce alternative voluntary severance schemes because the old one breaks age discrimination laws and has been axed by the Government.

“This is a voluntary scheme and staff do not have to apply nor do they have to accept it in the event that it is offered to them.

“The city council simply would not be able to afford the scheme that the unions requested.”

“Our proposal is more generous than the Government’s statutory redundancy scheme and we have already had a positive response from a number of home care staff interested in taking up the proposed offer if it is adopted by the city council.”

Cllr Roz Gladden, Labour spokeswoman on social care, said: “These home care staff have been treated shabbily by the council, both from an employment point of view as well as severance arrangements.

“The council is wrong in what it says about being constrained by government regulations because there is scope to have far better arrangements than those they are bringing in.”

larryneild