{"id":11348,"date":"2017-02-03T11:06:53","date_gmt":"2017-02-03T11:06:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=11348"},"modified":"2017-02-03T11:06:53","modified_gmt":"2017-02-03T11:06:53","slug":"unite-slam-council-leaders-double-standards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=11348","title":{"rendered":"Unite slam council leader&#8217;s double standards"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n<p>Tory-controlled Portsmouth city council seems \u00e2\u20ac\u0098hell-bent\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 on worsening industrial relations by slashing the funding for trade union reps who represent workers, Unite said today (February 3).<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Unite said that it was \u00e2\u20ac\u0098self-defeating\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 as unions reps seconded to these roles \u00e2\u20ac\u201c known as \u00e2\u20ac\u0098facility time\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c provided representation to workers, smoothed out the disciplinary process and averted possible escalations into an industrial dispute.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The union said that the council leader Cllr Donna Jones has claimed that facility time was \u00e2\u20ac\u0098a luxury\u00e2\u20ac\u2122. This is, despite when becoming leader in 2014, she hired her own policy and strategy advisor at a salary of \u00c2\u014142,000-a-year, although she already had an experienced top management team to offer her advice.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Unite said that the council\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s proposals to halve the funding from April \u00e2\u20ac\u201c due to be discussed by the full council on February 14 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c was \u00e2\u20ac\u0098short-sighted\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00c2\u00a0 and motivated by anti-union bias \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and, in the end, would be detrimental to employment relations.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWhat we have here is a case of double standards \u00e2\u20ac\u201c council leader Donna Jones has described facility time that promotes good working practice across the council as a luxury, while liberally splashing out council taxpayers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 cash on her own policy advisor,&#8221; said Unite regional officer Richard White.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bI will let the citizens of Portsmouth decide which is the better use of public money \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a long-established system that provides a smooth-running employment structure for the 3,600-strong council workforce, or the ego boost of having your own policy advisor as council leader?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bDonna Jones seems hell-bent on halving the budget in a self-defeating fit of anti-union pique,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe are calling on the full council to restore the facility budget which is shared between three trade unions: Unite, GMB and Unison. This figure has been consistently underspent over the years due to carefully scrutiny by the trade unions.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bSome of this money is spent on a Unite facility rep who spends 90 per cent of the working week dealing with case work for our members at the council.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bSeconded union representatives are employees elected by the workforce and released from their main job to undertake statutory trade union duties to maintain fair staff management processes,&#8221; White went on to say.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bDue to their cost-effective nature, these roles are common in both the public and private sector for employers of over 500 staff.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe secondees are experienced and have specialist knowledge of employment practice and legislation. They support staff by resolving workplace issues, such as disciplinary hearings, grievances and sickness absence processes.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThey also represent the interests of the entire workforce during consultations on workplace reorganisations, redundancies, pay and conditions leading to collective agreements between workforce and employer.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tory-controlled Portsmouth city council seems \u00e2\u20ac\u0098hell-bent\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 on worsening industrial relations by slashing the funding for trade union reps who represent workers, Unite said today (February 3). &nbsp; Unite said that it was \u00e2\u20ac\u0098self-defeating\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 as unions reps seconded to these roles \u00e2\u20ac\u201c known as \u00e2\u20ac\u0098facility time\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c provided representation to workers, smoothed out the disciplinary process [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11349,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[678,104,679],"wps_subtitle":"Portsmouth cuts facility time - for leader's aide","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11348"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11348"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11348\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11350,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11348\/revisions\/11350"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}