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Neil MacGregor
It is with great sadness that we say goodbye to
Neil MacGregor, our Branch Treasurer for many
years. Neil died on Tuesday after losing
his battle against cancer. He had
been an activist since the old Nalgo days and was
Treasurer at the inception of East Renfrewshire Branch. We will all miss him.
Neil’s funeral will be held at the Linn
Crematorium on Wednesday 1 February at 2pm and thereafter at the Redhurst Hotel, Eastwoodmains
Road, Giffnock.
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Living Wage
As previously reported in our Summer
Newsletter, since January this year we have been negotiating with East
Renfrewshire Council to introduce the Scottish Living Wage of £7.15 per
hour for every employee.
Negotiations have now concluded and a report has been sent to
Cabinet that will see the Living Wage being introduced from October 1st
2011.
This will see the hourly rate increasing for
those on pay grades 1 and 2 to £7.15 with immediate effect on all basic
hours.
To pay for this the Council will move all staff
currently paid weekly and fortnightly to four weekly pay from 1st
April 2012. We understand that this
will be a big change for a large number of members but if we did not accept
this proposal we would be looking at some of our members losing financially
or even losing their job to pay for the introduction of the Living
Wage. To counteract the effects on
those currently paid weekly or fortnightly we have insisted that budgeting
training is provided with paid time off to attend and the arrangements for
this are currently being negotiated as are transitional arrangements for
the move to four weekly pay.
The Council will come back to us with proposals
for the transitional arrangements soon and we will let you know what the
options are.
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Clyde Valley Shared Services
The council
met recently to consider proposals to share support services such as ICT,
Finance, HR and Payroll with other councils in the Clyde Valley. This
proposal to participate in the Clyde Valley Shared Services was unanimously
approved by Councillors at their meeting on Wednesday 14 September. The Leader of the Council, Jim Fletcher,
acknowledged this would be a difficult time but gave a commitment that
certain conditions would have to be met and that at this stage East
Renfrewshire Council is only committed to looking at the proposal.
We have now
heard that Glasgow City Council have pulled out of Shared Services and
rumours abound that East Dunbartonshire is about to do the same.
We need
YOU, as workers in these services, to speak to your managers and get them
to tell you what this could mean for you.
We have a list of questions in the Branch – contact us for further
information.
UNISON
is not opposed to share services in principle. But for schemes to be
successful they need to be developed from the bottom up with the aim of
improving services, not from the top down to meet cash targets. These
proposals will cut jobs and damage local services.
Updated 3 October
2011
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