After the best ever ballot result, 73.11% turnout and 100% YES vote for strike, Camden traffic wardens started on Monday 24 July, an indefinite (also known as continuous) strike action. Everyone attended their base picket line since (including many who were meant to be on a rest day), sending a really clear message to NSL that we’re organised and determined and can win!

Picket lines, rallies, lobbying the Council and the strike meetings have been well attended and a resounding success with everyone coming together, reporting how their picket lines were successful and discussion followed.

Many message of support from colleagues, other trade unions and the public have been received. UNISON published a press release and information has been sent to other UNISON branches in London.

A great article about the strike has been published in this the Camden New Journal, and they will continue to report the dispute.

We are continuously producing leaflets, badges and stickers that have been given out to members of the public about the strike, and distributed to other trade union branches asking for shows of solidarity.

A delegation from Tower Hamlet UNISON visited your picket lines already and two young traffic wardens members have attended their branch meeting explaining the reasons behind the strike.

Tower Hamlet Unison has promised a contribution to the strike fund and other will follow from other trade unions as the dispute is publicised.

So make sure you continue to attend your picket line– and let’s be loud and proud!!!!

Camden UNISON

unison@camden.gov.uk

Tel: 020 7974 1633
Email: unison@camden.gov.uk
Web: http://www.camdenunison.org.uk

Camden UNISON Branch Office
3rd Floor Crowndale Centre
218-220 Eversholt Street
London
NW1 1BD

We haven’t been able to email members with the result of our national pay ballot because of IT problems, so we decided to post the results for our branch here.

Our main ballot of Camden employees including the community schools was a turnout of 42.19% with a YES vote of 84.64%.

So very mixed feeling – obviously, it’s gutting that we didn’t quite make it over 50%. Lots of you in the branch and who come to our meetings regularly put in loads of work – so for instance based on our own info, we had turnouts over 80% in DDS and Housing Officers (big up the reps there!). We also had some fantastic turnouts in schools, again over 80% in some.

Our weakness was the areas where we don’t have reps/people we could ask to be ballot rep and chase up their team – so we know what to work on next time. The phoning definitely made a difference and members seemed to like a call from the branch, which will also help in the future. One important action out of this is that we spend time over the summer/autumn making contacts in those areas so we have more organisation.

We are one of the branches with quite a lot of ‘NJC’ members, and so our result really is a testament to the work of reps and pay campaigners – and you can tell the strength of feeling by the huge YES vote for strike action!

We haven’t yet got the results of our non-Camden schools, I think it’s likely that we will have got over 50% in some of those, but let’s see, and we need to look how many members we have in each of them etc.

In the midst of being frustrated that we got so close, there are a couple of important positives. In the last month alone, over 60 people have joined the branch, and hopefully having joined whilst we’re campaigning about action over pay will be up for getting involved. Some of the new members are in the areas where we aren’t so well organised, so will make a difference there. Also, this is the best result we’ve had certainly for about 20 years (of course the 50% turnout wasn’t relevant for most of that time) and almost double what we got in the last official ballot, so is definitely something we can build on. And it’s a good enough turnout, and YES vote, that management will see we aren’t a pushover – if there were to be a local issue, we could get over 50%, and they’ll recognise that too.

UNISON is now waiting for the outcome of the Unite Local Government pay ballot before announcing next steps.

So all in all, we should of course be gutted that we haven’t got over 50%, but also should be very proud of how close we came and the work we’ve done. We can have a good discussion our meetings about how we can build on it. And don’t forget our traffic wardens! More details about their dispute coming soon.

It needs to be in a post box by the end of the week to get to it’s destination by 10am on Tuesday 4 July!

Last year, Chris Smalls was part of a group of workers who took on Amazon and won the right to have a union at the Staten Island centre. They started the Amazon Labor Union (ALO) and since then have been campaigning for recognition across the US, and supporting Amazon workers globally in their fight for union rights. Earlier this year, he met with Amazon strikers at Coventry, where they have recruited hundreds to the union and been taking strike action for decent pay.

During the pandemic, Chris led a walkout about the conditions they were expected to work in. He was dismissed the next day, but along with workmates, he spent the next two years organising the union. Amazon even had them arrested when they brought leaflets and other union material to hand out in the car park.

Jeff Bezos, the Amazon boss, is the third richest man in the world, and he spent millions of dollars trying to stop Chris and his workmates. But they still lost!

Come along to the meeting (in person) to hear the story of how workers beat Jeff Bezos — and be inspired to take on our bosses too!

Visit our Pay Microsite                 Camden UNISON          the public service union

Dear Camden UNISON Member,

***USE YOUR VOTE***USE YOUR VOTE***USE YOUR VOTE***

POST ME NOW!

Camden schools have received the minimum per pupil funding increase from the Government since 2018. Next year the current estimates for Camden given by the DfE increase funding by 0.5%! How can this be when inflation is 20 times that at 10.1%. on average Camden mainstream schools have lost £941 per pupil in real terms since 2015.

This has placed most schools in a very precarious situation. Many schools are now running deficit budgets, where they use some past savings to pay for day-to-day School Funding. Some have run out of savings.

UNISON have now agreed the pay rise for school support staff. The flat rate increase of £2,355 (see panel) means that the lowest paid school workers will see a 10.5% pay rise. Teaching Assistants in Camden schools will see an increase of around 9%.For most school support staff, this is our biggest pay rise in over two decades.

And it still won’t keep our heads above water. The last 10 years has seen our pay cut by at least 20% compared to inflation.

But the work we do in schools has never been more valuable. Inclusion has meant more children with more complex needs are supported in or out of class by support staff. The pandemic required us to support children so that essential workers could go to work. Now increased numbers of children require wellbeing and emotional support. And the support we give in the Early Years is far more intense than pre-pandemic.

If the Government doesn’t increase Camden’s schools funding to meet the increased running costs, Governing Bodies could cut staff and the achievement levels for Camden’s children will suffer.
We don’t want that to happen. We want properly staffed schools that can meet the needs of Camden’s children and schools need the funding to do that. Camden UNISON will be consulting you on how we campaign to get the funding for our schools. If funding hits jobs, pay or conditions we can ballot for action across the borough. This would be a powerful campaign that could get proper funding for our schools.

Your Pay Rise 2022.

Your November pay includes your annual cost of living pay rise negotiated by UNISON and agreed nationally for school and council staff from 1st April this year.

Camden UNISON members voted to reject this offer by 4 to 1 as it is not in line with inflation – 11.7%.

However, this flat rate rise of £2,355 in Camden, is a 10% increase for the lowest paid members, 7.5% for Nursery Nurses & HLTAs and over 9% for Teaching Assistants.

The table below shows what your Back pay in November should be if you work 35 hours a week TTO. For different weekly hours just divide by 35 and multiply by your hours.

Continuous Service                Scale 1-5                      Sc 6 & over

Under 5                                    1,176.89                         1,192.61

5 – 10                                         1,203.33                        1,203.33

10 – 15                                       1,203.33                         1,219.76

15 – 20                                       1,214.23                         1,230.97

20 – 25                                      1,219.76                          1,236.66

25 – 30                                      1,225.34                         1,242.39

Over 30                                    1,230.97                         1,248.18

All amounts for a 35 hour week TTO
You will also get paid for one additional days holiday pro-rata.

JOIN UNISON TODAY – Get Organised
If school support staff are not in a UNION that can negotiate your pay, terms and conditions they
need to join with you. Please ask them to join.
And if you don’t have a shop steward in your school, you’re only getting half the support you need.
Members with stewards are better informed and deal with issues that come up – Please elect one!
For further information either call 020 7974 3996 or email unison@camden.gov.uk

To all Camden UNISON members

This information about pay is for directly-employed Council workers and those on NJC pay. If you work for a private company, you will not be affected by this, but you may be interested in the events at the end, as well as wanting to keep up with what’s happening with pay for Council workers.

UNISON’s claim

On 15 February 2020 UNISON, GMB and Unite lodged the following pay and conditions claim for all council and school workers employed on NJC pay in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The claim from 1 April 2021 was for:

• A substantial increase with a minimum of 10% on all spinal column points

• Introduction of a homeworking allowance for all staff who are working from home

• A national minimum agreement on homeworking policies for all councils

• A reduction of the working week to 35 hours with no loss of pay, and a reduction to 34 hours a week in London. Part-time staff to be given a choice of a pro rata reduction, or retaining the same hours and being paid a higher percentage of FTE

• A minimum of 25 days annual leave plus public holidays and statutory days for all starting employees plus an extra day holiday on all other holiday rates that depend on service.

• An agreement on a best practice national programme of mental health support for all local authorities and school staff.

• A joint review of job descriptions, routes for career developments and pay banding for school support staff, and completion of the outstanding work of the joint term-time only review group.

• A joint review of the provisions in the Green Book for maternity/paternity/shared parental/adoption leave.

You’ll notice that some of the conditions part of it won’t apply to us – we already have more than 25 days annual leave for starting employees, for example – but as well as the headline 10% pay increase, conditions like a homeworking agreement, and the parental leave policies could lead to improvements for us, and of course we stand and fight with those who have worse conditions than us to get improvements for them.

The Employers’ Offer

The employers (and therefore the government) came back with an ‘offer’, aka an insult, of 1.5%. They agreed to complete the outstanding term-time only work, and to discuss some of the other conditions, but with no promises on a WFH agreement, on mental health or parental leave.

This was rejected by UNISON, as it came nowhere near reflecting both the impact of more than a decade of pay cuts and the role we had played in the pandemic. As well as calling on the employers to meet urgently to negotiate further, UNISON was also clear that we need to be campaigning for an increase in funding for Councils, many of which have had budget cuts of 50% over recent years.

Following meetings with the employers, they made a further offer of a 1.75% pay increase, and no change to the conditions part of the claim.

UNISON is now starting consultation with members and is strongly proposing a vote to reject this insult.

It’s Not Enough

The offer falls well short of the claim for a 10% increase. Since 2010, Council workers have lost over 25% of our salary in real terms. That means every week, we now work more than a day a week for free compared to a decade ago. Think about that when you set off to work for free every Friday!

At the same time, the rich have got richer – the UK now has 171 billionaires, up 24 from last year, many who have benefitted from Tory tax breaks and overseas tax havens. Their combined wealth increased more than 20% from last year, at a time when millions of workers were furloughed or lost their jobs.

And whilst Boris Johnson spends £840 per roll of wallpaper and his friends and family get corrupt covid contracts worth billions, working class people this month face a reduction in Universal Credit. Millions of children got fed by a footballer because the Tories don’t care.

There’s enough money to make sure that no-one is hungry or homeless, that our hospitals are staffed and our public services are funded. Public service workers were the backbone of the response to the pandemic and we deserve more than having our funding cut and our pay cut.

It’s right that we have a 10% pay claim, but we need to make sure that it goes alongside a loud, vibrant campaign for fully funded services – all of us have seen council funding massively cut in the last decade and this has to be reversed. Our pay must not be competing with funding for the services we provide.

But the rich and their governments never hand over money if they can help it. We can learn from the Black Lives Matter movement that earlier this year forced a guilty verdict in the trial of George Floyd’s killer – we need to be organised, we need to protest and take action, to say enough is enough.

Vote Reject

That’s why we are urging all of you to vote to reject this ‘offer’. Over the next week we will be sending out an online ballot, and you voting REJECT can really make a difference.

What you need to do

First of all, make sure we have the correct details for you – in particular your email and postal addresses. You can update your details on the UNISON website using the link below:

My UNISON

Or you can email changes to unison@camden.gov.uk and we can update them for you.

Then ask your workmates if they’re in UNISON – if not, ask them to join. They can join using the link below:

http://join.unison.org.uk/

Feel free to use some of the information in this email to let them know about the claim and that there’s money that could be used. Why not say something about it at the end of your next team meeting?

And check your emails to make sure you get updates and the online vote from Camden UNISON!

Liz

Liz Wheatley
Branch Secretary
Camden UNISON
London Borough of Camden

Email: unison@camden.gov.uk
Web: http://www.camdenunison.org.uk
UNISON Office
3rd floor Crowndale Centre
218 Eversholt Street
London NW1 1BD

Many of you not only read about the government limiting the amount local government workers would receive if made redundant, you also wrote to the minister responsible for this, signed petitions and wrote to your MPs. The government pushed ahead with this and made it law in November. 　However, it faced a judicial review led by UNISON, and that combined with the campaigning you all did led to the Tories revoking the law after only 3 months.

The government, the Daily Mail and other right-wing cheerleaders said that these regulations were introduced to cut big pay outs to the highest paid public servants when they were made redundant. They set a ‘cap’ to pay outs of £95,000, which sounds a lot.

But in reality this payment cap meant that even lower paid staff could have been caught up by the law. In particular, it would have affected those in the local government pension scheme (LGPS) who were made redundant over the age of 55, as their benefits are payable immediately without any early retirement reduction.

Employers have to cover additional money for the early retirement (so-called ‘pension strain costs’) and when these are added on top off any redundancy payments, this can quickly mount up and exceed the £95,000 cap.

UNISON and other unions made a legal challenge that was due to be heard in a few weeks. However, just as we were finalising our evidence, the government backed down – sneaking out the news on a Friday evening, hoping to dampen down any press coverage! The government says that it has disapplied the regulations, with a view to revoking them completely, because it may have had ‘unintended consequences’.

It’s worth noting that these regulations would only have kicked in when someone was made redundant. And with thousands of jobs having already gone across public services over the last decade of austerity, one job going is still one too many.

The lesson for us here is that campaigning can work!