Amey pay offer slammed

Unite has branded a pay offer, made to its 500 members employed by Amey undertaking prison maintenance work, as a farce and a ‘lucky dip’.

The problems relate to last year’s pay increase which was due in April 2018. Amey proposed a variable pay deal for its prison maintenance stuff. Workers would receive between 0 – 3.5 per cent depending on a huge number of factors (see notes to editors).

Amey has been unable to provide information on how much each of Unite’s 500 members will receive if they agree to the pay offer and when individual workers have asked for the same information about their personal proposed increase they have also been told that it is not available.

Amey has now told Unite that they will provide the requested information only after the workforce has agreed to the pay offer. The company has refused to enter into any further negotiations about the pay offer.

Amey acquired the prison maintenance contract for all prisons in the North of England and Midlands in 2015. In the nearly four years since prison maintenance work was privatised Amey has failed to harmonise pay rates and problems are increasing rather than being resolved.

Unite officer with responsibility for prisons Caren Evans said, “The pay offer is a complete farce; Amey can’t or won’t tell Unite or the individual workers how much they will receive until after the offer is accepted.

“This is not a pay offer but a badly executed lucky dip.

“Workers operating side by side, doing the same work, could see one worker receiving a 3.5 per cent increase while the other received nothing.

“Amey has had this contract for nearly four years and rather than resolving pay issues, they are getting worse.

“This is the latest example of Amey’s total mishandling of the prison maintenance contracts which have been dogged by large doses of inertia and incompetence.

“The service is failing and the government must step and in and re-nationalise prison maintenance before the problems become so severe that the welfare of staff and inmates is directly put at risk.”

Amey has racked up substantial losses due to problems on its other public service contracts and it is understood that its Spanish parent company Ferrovial is looking to sell it.

The prison maintenance work in southern England was transferred to Carillion and following that company’s demise in January 2018, the workforce was transferred to Facility Management Services Ltd (FMSL) which is effectively a government agency. Since the workforce were transferred many of the pay and conditions issues are being resolved.