- Conference
- 2018 Community Service Group Conference
- Date
- 10 November 2017
- Decision
- Carried
There is a persistent problem of funding and how contracts are put out for tender.
The impact of this is that there is often so little money in the contract that staffing costs are the area employers target to cut back so members end up with larger workloads and lower pay, wages rarely allow for the living wage so the minimum wage is all that can be offered.
Additionally, employment is insecure with some companies having to pull out when a contract comes up for retender. This often ends up with closures and/or redundancies. Within certain sectors staff are often on fixed term contracts for the length of time of the contract so end up with nothing at the end.
Disabled members have enough problems trying to sustain employment without their wages being paid at the lowest rates and where employers are looking at every cost and haven’t got enough finances to cover the workforce costs and we believe they are less likely to employ disabled people and provide the reasonable adjustments needed.
Conference, we welcome the steps taken by UNISON to fight for fairer funding especially in social care, using the social care charter, but more needs to be done. We need to push more for the Government and Councils to properly fund the level of services that they expect to be delivered in contracts. We need to ensure that employers pay the minimum wage and that workloads are manageable.
Finally, employers have to pressed to ensure sufficient monies are allowed for the real cost of sleep ins and that back pay is provided for staff affected.
Conference calls on Community Service Group Executive to;
1)Work with local government service group, to profile where services have been returned in house to local authorities;
2)To work across the union including the NEC to continue to push for fairer funding for services provided in the community sector;
3)To develop a bargaining strategy for community sector employers to pay up now and improve pay across the employers.