public service worries

madmittens

I agree, but let's all get through this then we can all fight the battle of 'taking a mile'

ceridwen

I understand where you are coming from Sunshine 1988

Where I differ is that I dont personally think things will pick up in a year or two or three...hence I see the start of a "slippery slope"..

sunshine_1988

Maybe I am a bit too optomistic in my own LA - we get a lot of emails about how we are doing really well etc - maybe I have been sucked in lol.

mumps

ceridwen wrote: »

How self-defeating is that??? If the employer in this case is expecting to impose 4 days unpaid leave on the employee - the employee might well "get their own back" by taking 4 days "sick leave" that isnt (ie they are perfectly well). That is a very obvious way available to them to "pay the employer back" for doing this to them - there may be others...;)

I know the Union has agreed this in this case - but I wonder whether it is possible to bring a legal claim against the employer on the grounds that they have breached some law or other? There must BE some law or other that this goes right against - and maybe your wife has legal cover as an add-on to your household insurance...so could start searching for some relevant law to use to fight back against this.


It could be the thin end of a wedge....this year 4 days...next year 10 days....the following year 20 days....

I am a senior manager in HR, I work in the private sector but have worked for district and county councils. Making people redundant is not pleasant and I favour sharing out the available work. I am currently doing this on a voluntary basis and there are alot of people out there who like the idea of a 4 day or 4.5 day week. I hope we can manage with people doing this on a voluntary basis.

I would be disappointed if my staff started to play silly games with sick leave in the current economic environment, doesn't seem very mature or reasonable to me. There are tough times ahead and we all need to work together on this one. I am cutting my working week by half a day a week.

Good luck to everyone in the public sector, I have worked in authorities during reorganisation and know how hard the waiting can be.

Frugalista

ceridwen wrote: »

If the employer in this case is expecting to impose 4 days unpaid leave on the employee - the employee might well "get their own back" by taking 4 days "sick leave" that isnt (ie they are perfectly well).

Isn't this fraud and therefore, in effect, STEALING?????

Andy_L

sunshine_1988 wrote: »

Hi
I agree with you. I work in the LA too and I think that the majority of people would rather take a reduced week than lose thier job. In some cases it could mean that in an office of 6 people, if everyone took a reduced week it could save 1 person being cut as theoretically you would be saving 6 days per week, if that makes sense.

Realistically I dont think they could ever go as far as making you take too much unpaid leave without agreement, if the employee disagrees with it then they are well within thier rights to leave or raise it with HR/Unions.

Hopefully it is a short term thing in many LAs and things may pick up in the next 2-3 years.

IMO reduced working makes no sense in the public sector.
In the private sector it happened becasue there was no work for people (eg fewer orders) because of the recession and redundancies would be hard on employees and cost the employer money to make them redundant & then recruit when things pick up.
However the recession hasn't resulted in less work in the public sector so by going to reduced hours that work will still have to be done when people are in work. Assuming that thre is spare capacity to catch up with that workload then the staff numbers should have been reduced ages ago regardless of recession.

sunshine_1988

Hi
I see your point entirely. I think that yes, the work will still have to be done but 'customers' will have to accept that possibly things will take 10 days to respond to instead of 5, or that the level of support offered will be less.
You are right, people cant expect to have less staff and still get the same level of support etc.
In some cases due to the governement cuts services are being deleted and unfortunately that means that staffs posts will be deleted as the work is no longer there to be done.

Its a very worrying place to work and unfortunately many peoples work loads will be increasing, but if it means they keep thier job I suppose people will take on more and more.

dazza190574

I work in the civil service and the network of offices I work in have been abolished. But to make matters worse, it wasn't confirmed we were going to be abolished until the Government forced through Parliament a reduction in our redundancy pay.

We are all now waiting to see what redundancy packages are on offer (our office closes in March and nothing has been offered yet). We were told that some work our office does will continue to be done, so there is a possibility of doing that. However, we would all have to apply for the jobs when they came up (so far about 50 jobs have been advertised across our netwrok which has about 2,000 staff). We were also told that we would not be forced to move to London to get a job. But nearly all of the jobs that are being advertised as continuing after closure are going to either be based in London or require working in London for at least two days a week. Very family friendly eh!?

Oh, and the London office was closed long before we were told we were going to be scrapped and they were all offered jobs without applying for them and of course were offered redundancy on the original terms.

SevenOfNine

The LA in Milton Keynes also changed the terms of their redundancy policy so that both the redundancy pay and redeployment to a lower grade job on a protected salary were less favourable for the employees. THEN the redundancy notices went out.

During the consultation period for these changes the unions didn't seem to put up much of a fight (or any fight, frankly) and they slithered in almost unnoticed by the staff.

Hobbit56

Hi = the employer cant impose 4 days unpaid annual leave that is a change to your terms and conditions and has to be negotiated according to your T&Cs or else you can sue them for breach of contract via your union!