Today's members' meeting heard a report from Lynne Hodge, who is leading the negotiations for Amicus, and had a lengthy discussion on the current drafts of the settlement documents.
The meeting heard that reps plan to conduct a survey of members to identify who is affected by particular issues, so that their detailed views can be taken into account.
The company had further extended the "protected period" for industrial action to allow more time for talks. Negotiations are due to continue tomorrow.
The meeting unanimously passed the following motion:
MOTION
We note the gradual progress being made in the negotiations. Many of the issues of detail and drafting have now been resolved.
We note the following key points where the company is still trying to worsen the treatment of staff compared to past policy or practice:
1) That the company is retrospectively claiming that employees whose contracts state they are covered by the "current policy" on redundancy would get the new "minimum" severance terms. At no point had the company notified employees or Amicus of any change from the old policy of the Security of Employment Agreement and M-grade package. This would dramatically reduce the value of redundancy packages for many members.
2) That the company is refusing to confirm that MAN05 staff outside the collective bargaining unit will continue to get 90-days consultation for potential redundancy, or to say which of them will continue to benefit from SEA severance terms.
3) Whereas during the 2002 redundancies, the company repeatedly referred to people's "contractual" redundancy terms, the company is unwilling to make the new redundancy arrangements contractual.
We are concerned by the company's draft wording on pay:
1) The company seems to be trying to claim that low pay is a result of poor individual performance, rather than the company's current pay system
2) The commitments are based on next year's pay scales, which don't yet exist, and there is no assurance that these will be broadly in line with the current ones (i.e. that the benchmarks won't be lowered)
3) The commitment to part of the available funds being used for an "across the board" pay rise is being watered down with exceptions. Differences in performance and current pay can be dealt with using the remainder of the funds.
4) There is not even a broad commitment to how much of the funds available next year would be used to address the issues identified in the company statement.
We had previously agreed that:
Providing the offers on the other issues were positive, and the company agreed a distribution of the April 2004 pay review which addresses the Fair Pay issues, we would agree to take no further action in pursuit of the 2003 Fair Pay claim.
We are concerned that the company appear to be under the misapprehensions that:
1) a vague and woolly statement on pay is sufficient, and that
2) a redundancy agreement which reduced the entitlements of any of our members could be considered a "positive" offer.
The company must address these issues.
We are also concerned that the pace of progress is slowing, that the time committed by the company seems inadequate, that issues which Amicus raised months ago are only now being addressed, and that issues which had been resolved keep resurfacing. If the company is serious about a settlement, it can authorise managers to negotiate, and make them available.
We authorise our reps to continue talks, but to report back to us promptly if it appears that the company is not committed to quickly reaching a realistic settlement. Given the progress on the detail and wording of the offers, we believe a two-week period should be sufficient to achieve significant progress on all the key outstanding issues. We instruct our reps to report back to us after two weeks.
If at any point the Company breaks off negotiations, or refuses to further extend the 8-week period, we authorise our reps to call action short of strike and up to four days further strike action.
Posted by IA at November 11, 2003 04:28 PM