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Council staff in wages stunner
Reporter: Janice Barker
Date online: 30 June 2010
EXCLUSIVE: Fifth face an average £3,000 cut
ALMOST a fifth of council staff face an average £3,000 pay cut — and some up to £16,000 — following the authority’s salary and grading review.
Letters have gone out to a total of 4,000 people who do 5,000 jobs, after the council harmonised terms and conditions for all manual and office-based staff.
The losers are mainly in grounds maintenance and refuse collection, where the system of paying bonuses has been replaced by a flat salary.
Other staff will see their pay increase, some will stay the same.
Teachers and other education posts are not included in the review.
Emma Alexander, executive director for performance, services and capacity, said those getting an increase are mainly lower-paid staff such as cleaners, caterers, and care workers.
Reductions will affect some white collar departments, such as accountancy and human resources.
She said the new pay grades will add 3.75 per cent to the pay bill, or £3 million a year, but council tax will not be affected as the sums have already been built into this year’s budget.
She added: “Overall, 18 per cent of staff face an average reduction in salary of £3,000 a year, which ranges from £50 to just over £16,000 in isolated cases.
“We are not expecting everyone will be pleased with this, but we have worked closely with the trade unions to evaluate our jobs and put together a package of pay, terms and conditions that both allow us to recruit and retain staff and which provides value for money.”
The council was required by law to carry out the job evaluation and pay and grading review by Government.
Three years ago Oldham paid around £7 million to about 1,700 employees, mainly women, when a rash of equal pay claims were made up and down the country.
Women workers made successful employment tribunal claims because they had been paid less than men on the same grade, who qualified for bonus payments not offered to the women.
Ms Alexander said the council had no choice but to implement the pay and grading structure, or face more potential employment claims.
She added: “It is a good news/bad news situation and for some people it will be devastating.
“If people do have a reduction, their pay will be protected until January 2012.”
A series of roadshows begin todayaround the civic buildings and in depots and other offices, she said, where there will be presentations by senior managers and members of the job evaluation team.
A staff helpline has also been opened for people to phone with queries and there will be a confidential external assistance programme for people to raise queries about finance and debt management.
A 90 day consultation period has begun and the council will make the final decision after that. The aim is to implement the new pay and grading structure from January next year.
Unison trade union chairman, Wendy Bradbury, said: “Everyone is steeling themselves for the worst in today’s economic climate. I think our helpline will be very busy.”
Council staff feeling better...
UNTIL today’s news, sickness levels at Oldham Council were falling...
New statistics show sickness absence has continued to fall across all services.
There was a reduction of nearly 24 per cent in 2009-10 compared with 2008-09. Days lost due to sickness fell from 11.07 to 8.43 per full time equivalent member of staff.
The improvement has been credited to better working practices and support systems, which have helped to manage staff issues more effectively.
Two years ago the council was accused of having the worst rate of sickness in Greater Manchester, costing every household nearly £100. Since then sickness absence rates have improved to be among the lowest rate in Greater Manchester.
Comments
Following this review, you can be certain that behind those hard-working, frontline employees who deliver the services that the tax paying public want is an army of supervisors, managers and executives who provide no benefits but take a high wedge out of the public purse.
As with all large companies they are top heavy ie too many chiefs and not enough indians.
Mikejh45: As an employee destined to lose around a third of my wage, I can assure that if this is just a scare story, it's working.
Dumpygrumpy: Hold on there, this is a place for contributors to bash public sector workers, there's no need to bring the wonderful private sector into this! More seriously, one problem with this job evaluation scheme designed to give equal pay for equal work, is it only goes up to indian (and minor chief) level. Those major chiefs earning over around £40k had their own seperate job evaluation scheme. As Mr Orwell would say, "everyone's equal, it's just that some are more equal than others".
Well said Mike. They also need to look at the committee structures, quangos and directorships.
As for the PUBLIC work they do - who came up with the sceme to make Failsworth memorial ground a trust, spend lots of time with the charity commission, designate alternate land, hold lots of meetings, all at our expense, and with the ultimate aim of renting out the land for pennies. Is this really what our highly paid officers should be spending their time on?
Is there really a need for a series of roadshows - why not send a letter to each employee. Why is the current salary level protected until 2012? Do I assume that those due for an increase in pay will need to wait until 2012?
Get it right - well said, why indeed pamper to us whinging council workers, we should just be told on friday we're losing a chunk of wages and start on Monday. Why, if I still worked in the private sector I'd have doffed my cap and said "thank you guvnor" with hardly a seconds thought.
They did this in trafford a copuple of years ago, as did other boroughs. Guess what, the indians lost (some their houses as well cos they couldn't pay the mortgage on the reduced salary) the chiefs got a rise due to the pressure convincing their indians how good it was.
Do these sickness figures incorporate the Unity partnership figures who have a bit more of an iron fist with their employees? Even if not redundancy has been on the cards for 2 years now and you dont have to be a genius to know your sickness will go against you in this decision making process, wait a minute - what am I saying, its the procedures and practices in place that are working, same way they were all through the early 2000s. Patting yourselves on the back, what a joke.
The council should have changed their pay structure in 1997 to comply with the Equal Pay Act but did not, were sued for millions, and now everyone has to suffer because of poor decisions. It's amazing how most of us suddenly have to work out how to survive with thousands less per year for working longer hours at worse terms, but there is still money for consultants... An organisation's biggest asset is its people - lose their goodwill and you are in trouble. The Council is in trouble!
So those losing money won't see the change until 2012? How can the money needed to pay for the overall increase have already been included in the budget? Who is it that is losing £16,000 a year?
Has the council undertaken a review of all the jobs it actually employs people to do? There must be quite a lot that could be cut without affecting performance in any way. I can think of one job that should be cut immediately..................
If everyone stuck to their contract and ceased the “goodwill” work they might start to think about the way they treat there workers
OMBC workers welcome to the real world.
So once again the losers are the ones at the bottom of the pile, those above them have managed to add a further £3million to the wage bill at a time when hundred of their co-workers jobs are under threat - tells us all we need to know about the presence of fat cats in the local economy. Shameful and shame on the Trade Unions for their collusion in the whole distasteful business.
AS USUAL ITS THE GUYS WHO DO ALL THE DEAD GOOD JOBS WHO LOSE OUT, I BET THE FATCATS WISH IT WAS THERE TURN, THEY MUST BE FEELING REALY LEFT OUT BY NOW.
Big Fat Buffalo, I've had to take a pay cut two years running, so why should council workers be exempt? Maybe if council workers took up the government initiative to look at where cuts could be made then the outcome may be different and if you are truly honest with yourself, you know where cuts could be made.
I know that there are still 3 tier management systems in place in the council which could be replaced by One.
the people on the wrong end of the pay scale now deserve our sympathy as this is a direct result of years of mismanagement
Can anyone tell me what happened to the 800 plus redundancies that Carlie Parker announced 18 month ago?
The council staff didn't determine their pay scales, nor did they write the job description, so why the gloating from some who have posted?
If you were suddenly told you were to lose X% of your salary, just how would you react? There certainly wouldn't be many smiles about!
It's time to look over your shoulder - YOU may be next! - and no, I'm not a council employee.
Its disgusting that people are so heartless over people who have lost considerable amounts of money whoever they are. Some have conveniently forgotten the senior managers who recently where made redundant with very little notice Whether private or public sector whatever the role nobody deserves it and how naive to think that nobody who earns more than 30k contributes to the enhancement of the lives of the public mikejh45 what a ridiculous uneducated comment people should be ashamed of themselves
Mikejh45: Sorry for the slow response here - I could have responded at lunch but of obvious reasons I'd rather not do so on a work PC. Sorry to hear you've had to take pay cuts for two years running. I would have expected that to give you a certain empathy, but apparently not, in fact it appears your argument is based largely on spite, which is unfortunate. I suspect you don't quite understand the scenario, which is fair enough, the story doesn't give much away. continued below...
This job evaluation is designed (inn a fundamentally flawed way) to redistribute the wages based on the work involved, it’s not (at least officially) to do with cuts (which as I’m sure you know are on the way). People are upset because it appears that many of the ‘indians’ appear to be losing out whilst the ‘chiefs’ seem to be doing fine, largely as a result of a framework that is badly designed and equally badly implemented.
i have worked for council for 24 years,why was the staff survey not done after this disgraceful treatment of hard working loyal workers.Talk about being stabbed in the back.The staff survey high lighted the low moral.Now the moral is non existant.Trust oldham u must be joking 18% of the workforce will never trust oldham council again.
talk about double standards.When 20 laptops wer stolen from the civic centre it was reported as theft.and rightly so But when they take thousands of pounds out of the worker pay packets its not theft.Thats a load of bull any body takes money of me, without my permission is a thief,i hope these ,no win no fee, legal people are waiting to pounce because u have one customer here.thought unions represented the workforce soz going back to the old days
So, Old Boy, please enlighten us with your suggestions to rein in public spending.
well dear oh deary me whats going to happen now i wonder maybe the bins wont be emptied properly or not at all but someones got to suffer i suppose so lets wait and see , i think some money should be stopped at the new walking center its a joke i waited nearly two and a half hours then give up and came home why call it a walk in when everyone seems to run out
Why ask that question you have mikejh45? Where in my comment have I spoken about public spending/cuts, which this equalisation of pay has nothing to do with? I responded to those who seem to be delighted that the Oldham workforce are losing pay.
But to answer your question with one: If we are all in this together, as Cameron and his hence men would have us believe, what is your contribution to cutting public spending? Obviously none as I suspect your not a public service worker.
Oldboy...There is a misconception here......the public sector is a bloated animal....there are people here who deserve their salary and shouldn't be cut across the board. I'm merely pointing out that there are a number of jobs which are meaningless and do not enhance the role of the council.
I worked for OMBC in the early '80s and it was incredibly wasteful then....nothing changes.
Finally, Old Boy, as a council tax payer I am entitled to voice my opinion.
An an ex-employee of OMBC, mikejh45, perhaps you may like to express an opinion as to how you would have felt had £6,000, or a substantial amount, been deducted from your pay, and I'll leave you to comment on whether your job was 'meaningless' to quote you!
Another comment, in this event the final sentence, baffles me. Where have I said you're not entitled to an opinion?
Have Your Say
Once again, we read the scare stories about public sector workers in the employment of OMBC. Just look at the latest council bulletin for vacancies and you will see half a dozen (can we still refer to Imperial measures) jobs with salaries between £30k and £60k. If you read the Guardian style descriptions, you will see that these jobs do nothing to enhance the lives of the Oldham council-tax paying public. What is needed is a private sector review of all council jobs from top to bottom.
By mikejh45 @ 30/06/2010 13:27:51