Wiltshire social workers striking every weekend until May
It's in a row with the Council over out-of-hours pay
Last updated 31st Jan 2024
Social workers at Wiltshire Council will be striking every weekend from February 16th until the middle of May, in a row over out-of-hours pay.
Members of the GMB union voted in favour of industrial action last month, concerned that contractual changes would see staff losing around 20% of their salary.
The plans would change the rate of pay so only certain night shifts and weekend working would be eligible for unsociable hours wages.
Andy Newman, GMB Branch Secretary said:
“It is ironic that while Wiltshire Council's elected Conservative administration is boasting of being in a sound financial position, the officers of the council are threatening to rip up the contracts of frontline staff, and justifying the cuts by an alleged financial emergency. Someone's not telling the truth.
“The council claims that its investment in children’s services is saving money through reducing the costs of later interventions, but the Chief Executive Terence Herbert and HR Director Tamsin Kielb are threatening those social workers with Fire and Rehire, and they would each lose from £500 to £750 per month of contractual guaranteed pay.
“GMB has been warning the council for some time that this will destroy the service, by making it harder to attract and retain workers with the right levels of qualification and experience.
“The council is threatening that ‘pay protection’ will not be given to staff unless they voluntarily agree to this contract change.
“GMB are clear that forcing members to waive away their pay is bullying and that is why our members are taking strike action.”
The strikes come alongside action by GMB members in other parts of the Council's staffing, which has been running for 2 years, and has seen 11 days of strikes by traffic wardens.
In a statement from Wiltshire Council, Chief Executive Terence Herbert, said:
“We have been notified by the GMB union that some staff – in both social worker and non-social worker roles – who support our out of hours Emergency Duty Service and Integrated Front Door service will be carrying out strike action during weekends from 16 February. We are confident that we will be able to put cover arrangements in place to ensure ongoing delivery of all critical elements of these services.
“We remain committed to resolving this long-standing issue and have been working with the unions for more than two years to achieve this. The protracted nature of the issue has made this a difficult time for the staff impacted and they are very keen for this to be resolved.
“Throughout this process we have strictly adhered to employment law and always will. We have been seeking to reach collective agreement, but to date the unions have not provided any alternative feasible proposals, although Unison and Unite did previously get a mandate to agree to the proposed changes. It’s important to note there will be no immediate dismissal and offer of re-engagement (also called “fire and re-hire”) despite GMB repeatedly stating that this will be the approach. Our absolute preference remains to reach collective agreement but if this is not possible then we will seek to reach agreement with staff on an individual basis.
“For the sake of the wellbeing of our staff, and our need to ensure our policies are fit for purpose, we have also been clear that this matter cannot remain unresolved indefinitely. In this time of making best use of public money, the existing terms and conditions are not financially sustainable in their current form and therefore we’re looking to pay staff for the hours they work during unsocial hours, not a flat rate as it is now. For instance, staff are currently receiving a full 37 unsocial hours plussage even if they only work 3.7 unsocial hours.
“Our preferred approach to making any changes to terms and conditions is always through collective agreement. Therefore, we have continued consultation with all three unions to outline that we are still willing to consider alternative, reasonable proposals from them that could enable us to achieve this outcome.
“It is in everyone’s best interests that this is resolved as quickly and fairly as possible and we’ll continue to work hard to achieve this.”