Going to lose £3000 per year due to rebanding of pay!!!

floss2

baggybond wrote: »

You were lucky to be in a previous job that gave you time to watch news and read papers. My girlfriend wasn't. 1.5 hour drive to work, if traffic was good, 12 - 14 hour shifts, then another 1.5 hour drive home. And thats when she didnt have to stay late. The only thing she wanted to do was go to bed when she got home.

I'm sorry, but get real! I had a family still at home when I was working a 48hr week, and I still managed it! Radio news bulletins in the car going to & from work, Sunday paper finally gets read on a Friday or Saturday.

baggybond wrote: »

She applied for the school job and got interviewed during a week off. She wasnt told a thing about the salary cut, she was told her salary would be matched, which it was until this cut!!! She has taken it up with whoever deals with it at her school. They were as surprised as she was at her salary cut as they had a list of who would be affected by this, and my girlfriend's name wasnt on that list!!!! The letter informing her came from the LA, not the school.

As I stated earlier, she needs to take this up with the departmental rep on their pay review group. She probably was not employed by the Council when the list was compiled.

baggybond wrote: »

Well its done and there not a thing she can do about it.

At least we now know that the LA are liars and not to be trusted, and she'll be getting out of the job ASAP.

Personally I would think twice about leaving a job in the current climate - she may well lose more than £3k, along with pension and security of employment.

BTW, I understood that all our Council staff have been advised of the pay review process as it went along, by letter & staff meetings. It seems a little odd that nobody at the school had been told. I am sure that a Local Authority would not be so remiss as to not tell groups of their staff :rolleyes:

eamon

I would have thought it unlikely that your GF would loose £3k straightaway. AFAIK the unions etc have agreed a 3 year time period for those adversely affected by job evaluation i.e. your pay is effectively frozen for 3 years, no inflation linked payrises, no climbing the salary bands. She really needs to speak to a local union rep. I'm also astonished that she was offered a "match your existing salary" deal on taking the job, this is unheard of in local government except for the highest flyers. All salary bands & grades (excluding heads of service grades) are normally published & freely available. Are you sure that you have all information?

Floss

eamon wrote: »

...... AFAIK the unions etc have agreed a 3 year time period for those adversely affected by job evaluation i.e. your pay is effectively frozen for 3 years, no inflation linked payrises, no climbing the salary bands.....

This is not across all Councils - each has the freedom to decide it's pay protection period according to what they can afford. It is unlikely that my Council will protect for 3 years.

eamon wrote: »

......I'm also astonished that she was offered a "match your existing salary" deal on taking the job, this is unheard of in local government except for the highest flyers. All salary bands & grades (excluding heads of service grades) are normally published & freely available. Are you sure that you have all information?

For most recently agreed scales see document link, this includes the recent 0.3% addition.

http://www.atl.org.uk/Images/NJC%20circular%20March%202009.pdf

perplexed.com

You should post this whole thread ( if it's possible to do such a thing!) on to some of the others and let some of those people who go on about cushy well paid public sector jobs see what the reality is for the majority working in this sector. I'm sorry for your girlfriend and her colleagues - unions don't seem to have the ability to challenge anything these days and the LA's will now probably cite the recession and unemployment as an excuse to do what they like!

Good luck, though, there may be others in the same boat who could help. Is there maybe a website or social club linked to her workplace where she could seek advice?

Floss

perplexed.com wrote: »

........ LA's will now probably cite the recession and unemployment as an excuse to do what they like!

LA's have no choice in this - they will be penalised by the Governement if they do not bring this pay review in within the set timescale.

TBH, the OP said earlier that the previous post holder had refused the option to appeal. I understood that this leave to appeal was only actually available when you know what the impact will be - i.e. when the letter with all the details has been sent out......so how did that person know they could appeal & how come they had a chance to say "no"?

Also, the appeal may well be for that "job" in all roles & departments, not for that particular post. For example, if a senior PA was to lose £3k & decide to appeal, their appeal decision could impact not only that person, but all others in that job throughout the COuncil.

baggybond

Her pay is not protected so no adjusting period. Other staff who have worked there longer do have protected pay for a set period of time, but not those staff who started around the same time my girlfriend started. Seems all new starters weren’t told about this either.

She found out today that those staff who have worked there longer did know about it but played dumb when she originally asked them. They didn’t want to get into a pay discussion with her as theirs was protected and they just found out how much my girlfriend was losing!

When she went for the job, there was an upper salary figure and a lower figure. She went for the upper figure, they tried to start her off at the lower figure. Because they were impressed with her a compromise was made and they started her off just above the middle of these two figures as that is what she was already earning, and they wanted her. So yes, they did match her salary, and that is what they told her when they came to the final salary offer!!!!

My girlfriend wasn’t told what the previous post holder knew about this, only that she didn’t take up the offer to appeal before the deadline.

So what some of you may or may not understand, or know, or feel is unlikely about how LAs should work or how changes in salary should be made, this is how it was done for my girlfriend!!!

prowla

Remember "Education, Education, Education"?
Perhaps this is what they really meant.
Anyway, there are four choices: (i) fight it by whatever means, (ii) accept it, (iii) leave, (iv) play the system to your advantage (sickies, leave, working hours, training, etc.).

baggybond

prowla wrote: »

Remember "Education, Education, Education"?
Perhaps this is what they really meant.
Anyway, there are four choices: (i) fight it by whatever means, (ii) accept it, (iii) leave, (iv) play the system to your advantage (sickies, leave, working hours, training, etc.).

Option 4, I like it and I will definately mention it to her!!

Thanks

ceridwen

I certainly dont go along with the "your G.F. should have known because it was in the news" argument. How ridiculous! The onus is on the employer to say (correctly!) what the salary is - NOT on the employee to follow the news to try and figure it out.

Some people don't follow the news closely anyway - for whatever reason. If I had a long workday with a commute to work either end of it then I imagine I would be listening to music (not news) on the car radio whilst I commuted - to help relax.

I dont understand what the other employees were playing at either - to deliberately not discuss this with your G.F. (even though they knew). No matter what they SAY their reasons were for this - I would interpret this as plain !!!!!iness...."ooh...look at her....I know one way we can have a go at her...just not tell her about this and let it come as a complete surprise out of the blue and lets hope she takes on some commitments she knows she can afford - only to find that the new lower salary will mean she lands up in trouble due to no fault of her own...hah! hah".

So - from this - well - I'm sorry there is no useful advice I feel can be given - except:

- Don't trust those work colleagues (as they were either being !!!!!y or have some other odd way of thinking). Either way - I wouldnt be looking for new "bessy mates" amongst them if I were your girlfriend.

At the least - there isnt anyone genuinely Union-minded amongst them - if there were then that person would still be going round "steaming" about that paycut and letting all and sundry know ALL about it - and your girlfriend would have heard them complaining volubly about it.

Floss

ceridwen wrote: »

I certainly dont go along with the "your G.F. should have known because it was in the news" argument. How ridiculous! The onus is on the employer to say (correctly!) what the salary is - NOT on the employee to follow the news to try and figure it out.

Some people don't follow the news closely anyway - for whatever reason. If I had a long workday with a commute to work either end of it then I imagine I would be listening to music (not news) on the car radio whilst I commuted - to help relax.

Maybe I am unusual by being aware of what is going on in the country around me, but I knew of this before I joined my Council, as was my OH who has worked in a totally different industry for 25 years and has never considered working for Local Government.

And the hourly 5 minute news BULLETINS are on Radio 2, along with an awful lot of music.

ceridwen wrote: »

I dont understand what the other employees were playing at either - to deliberately not discuss this with your G.F. (even though they knew). No matter what they SAY their reasons were for this - I would interpret this as plain !!!!!iness...."ooh...look at her....I know one way we can have a go at her...just not tell her about this and let it come as a complete surprise out of the blue and lets hope she takes on some commitments she knows she can afford - only to find that the new lower salary will mean she lands up in trouble due to no fault of her own...hah! hah".

We have been told that it could be a disciplinary offence to discuss any information about new grades / salaries before the information is given to all staff in the Council - perhaps THAT is why they did not discuss it & they had been told as we have been that there is a blanket ban on discussions?

ceridwen wrote: »

At the least - there isnt anyone genuinely Union-minded amongst them - if there were then that person would still be going round "steaming" about that paycut and letting all and sundry know ALL about it - and your girlfriend would have heard them complaining volubly about it.

Again, Unions are in the same boat - they can only discuss general themes, but not the finer detail until everything has been announced.

I have been (un)lucky enough to be involved in some of this process through my position, so I am aware of the process as it applies to my Council. However, every Council has had the freedom to apply protection (or not) according to its reserves, and also has had the freedom to create a process of reviewing each & every employee's salary - not every Council does it the same way i.e. there is no standard way for this to have been done.

I still stand by my suggestion in post #20 yesterday, that the OP's g/f should speak to her departmental representative on the Council's pay review group. Hopefully that will clear up some of the situation for her & enable her to decide if she wishes to look for another job elsewhere.