Backpay Bombshell? (17/06/16)

Lots of readers from North Lanarkshire have been in touch to ask where they stand (what they stand to lose), if the Council tries to stop them receiving any backpay that may be due from the late-running job evaluation (JE) scheme.  

Now I don't know is the honest answer because over a week after the Council and the trade unions announced that a 'deal' had been done everyone, especially the workforce, is still in the dark as to what this really means.

Which is an incredible state of affairs if you ask me and instead of clapping each other on the back, you would think that the Council would immediately release full details of the JE review so that people can see the proposals for themselves.

But that hasn't happened and the trade unions seems to be dancing to the Council's tune instead of standing up for the right of their members to know what is going on.

The backpay that would be due under any upgrading depends on the difference in pay (if any) between someone's old grade and new grade, and where their post would be placed on that new grade.

Given that this whole dispute goes back to 2007, I think it would be reasonable for anyone who was in post at that time (i.e. 2007) to go straight to the top of their new grade because that's the only thing that makes sense, if you ask me, since the new grades are intended to correct what went wrong with the old 2006/07 JE scheme.

If the difference in pay between the old and new grade were £2.00 an hour (an assumption not a prediction on my part), then the amount of backpay due would be £2.00 x a person's normal working week.

Using 30 hours as an example, that would come to £2.00 x 30 hours x 52 weeks in a full year = £3,120 less tax and National Insurance, of course. However this would only go back to 1 April 2015 which is the the originally agreed 'implementation date' for any new pay arrangements.

Yet we are now hurtling towards the end of June 2016 because the review is running very late and so I imagine any new pay arrangements could not be put in place until the end of July 2016 which would, therefore, add another four months (one third) to the backdating period.

So do the maths for yourself!

A bigger difference in hourly pay would obviously produce a higher figure in terms of any backdated pay and vice versa, as would an increase or decrease in the number of hours worked per week.

In any event the only way to get to the bottom of this is for the Council and/or the trade unions to explain what exactly is going on which they have failed to do up until now even though the review exercise should have been completed before the end of 2015.

Backpay Bombshell? (16/06/16)

A number of readers have been in touch to say that a stubborn rumour is doing the rounds in North Lanarkshire to the effect that the Council is planning to implement the late-running job evaluation (JE) review in such a way as to avoid paying the workforce any backpay they are due.

Now I can't see this happening for a number of important reasons:

1. The equal pay settlement reached with NLC last year drew a line under all pay and grading issues up to 31 March 2015.
2. So 1 April 2015 was always understood as the operative date for any new pay and grading arrangements going forward
3. As everyone knows, a JE scheme evaluates jobs as they are being done at the time - and clearly the duties and responsibilities of Home Carers, to name just one job, were being carried out from 1 April 2015 onwards
4. So any new rates of pay and higher grades can only, logically, apply from 1 April 2015 onwards. 
5. If not, the Council (and the trade unions) might just as well pull any old random date such as 1 April 2020 out of thin air
6. As a result 1 April 2015 is the only possible implementation date for the late-running JE review and the employees concerned must be entitled to be paid at their new rate and grades for all hours worked from 1 April 2015 onwards. 

Not just that, of course, because in my view any agreement North Lanarkshire has reached with the trade unions cannot override the right of individual employees to backpay, where appropriate.

Otherwise, the trade unions would be guilty of 'screwing' their own members in a way that would be truly shocking and indefensible.

So I think these rumours are probably just that 'rumours', although it is true to say that a week on from the JE Review being announced in the press, union members and the wider NLC workforce are still waiting to be provided with written details explaining the outcome.

I find it hard to believe that the local trade unions would attempt to sell their members out in this kind of cynical fashion, yet as regular readers are only too well aware this is exactly what happened back in 2006/07.

Surely the local unions would not enter into such a Devil's Pact again? - not least because if history were to repeat itself, the unions' credibility with ordinary union members would go right thought the floor. 

What would help clear all of this up, of course, is a clear and unequivocal statement from North Lanarkshire Council and hopefully this post on the blog site will spur the Council into action.