Advice Welcomed re Problems with Job Evaluation

Friendly_Drooc

I work for the LA and all posts have recently been subjected to job evaluation.

The 26 February was judgement day. We each met individually and as a team with our line manager and her line manager to be informed that the the scale at which our posts were to be paid had gone up by around £3k per year for full-time workers, we were overjoyed.

Myself and all colleagues received a letter that day detailing the changes to our terms and conditions and the letter specified what our post were currently graded at and what the new grades would be as from 1 April 2007. The letter states that

“all changes had been fully developed with UNISON, as the recognised trade union for collective bargaining purposes and are detailed in a local collective agreement. This means that the changes are automatically incorporated into the terms and conditions of your employment and this letter is notification of this variation to your employment contract.”

Today however our line manager informed us that there had been a problem and that our posts were being re-evaluated. Her manager had informed her on Friday that this was going to happen but told her not to tell us, but she felt she had to as she was concerned that we might commit ourselves to financial responsibilities we may ultimately not have the funds to pay if our jobs were re-evaluated and the pay scale dropped.

The first reaction of our Manager on Friday when she was told was that, those postholders who were members of UNISON, could appeal through them, however she was told that this was not possible due to UNISON being part of the job evaluation process. (I’ve not checked this out so unsure how accurate this is).

Our manager further informed us that, although she will support us in this process, she has been informed that the managers higher up the chain in our unit will not.

We have not received anything in writing confirming this.

We were shocked to put it mildly. When I returned home tonight I found the booklets etc we were given in February and, nowhere can I find anything that suggests that this could happen. The booklets do refer to people being able to appeal if they are unhappy about the grading (I imagine your pay being reduced) but this is the reverse of our situation.

I am aware that during week commencing 26 Feburary 2007, colleagues throughout the County had been informed of a mistake on their letters in that they had not been re-graded as high as their letters suggested and I understand they received revised letters within a very short space of time. In our case however, over four weeks has elapsed since we received our letters and nothing has been mentioned regarding this problem until today.

Has anyone else been through this process, did the same happen to you.

My main question is … can they do this ???
Any help would be most appreciated.
Thankyou

Friendly_Drooc

PS Sorry its so long.

LittleVoice

These are just my "feelings" rather than being based on real knowledge, but, for what that's worth -

April 1st is Sunday so it seems to me that if you haven't been officially told anything by then they should pay you at the rate they notified to you in February.

I would also think that if that happened they might have to continue paying you at that rate and ring-fence it - that is not give any annual increase until the rate applicable to the job/length of service was greater.

Ms_Chocaholic

I would agree with Little in that, if you have had no official confirmation of these proposed changes, then from 1 April salary should increase to new rate.

Savvy_Sue

Try ACAS, union member or not ...

BrownGirl

We're still waiting for ours to be finalised at our council - did the job evaluation forms nearly a year ago and was all supposed to be done & dusted by now - last we heard from our Unison branch was that it was still in progress; the council hasn't said much at all!

Have you spoken to your Unison rep about it - at the very least s/he should be able to tell you if they can appeal for you - they may already be doing the appeal process on behalf of you all if it affects a number of people. It's worth a try anyway; they've been involved in the job evaluation process at this end, but when jobs have gone to regrading (albiet before results of our evalution has come out) they've still done the appeals - surely its what we pay our subs for.

Good luck with it, hope it works out for you.

CFC

Speak to Unison. They'll tell you what is happening whether they are part of the process or not.

Your pay for should be as per the letter (variation to your contract) until and unless you get another letter telling you what your new pay rate is.

Councils and governments eat all our money and they couldn't find their rear ends with both hands and a Satnav. This is a good example of incompetence, directly funded by our taxes :mad: !!!