- Conference
- 2025 Water, Environment & Transport Conference
- Date
- 8 February 2025
- Decision
- Carried as Amended
Conference is concerned on the over-reliance on external contractors and consultants to carry out routine day-to-day work for employers in the WET service group. This uneconomical practice often comes at a great financial cost when at the same time bosses are ‘crying the poor tale’ when it comes to fairly rewarding our members for the hard work they do.
This cannot continue. WET employers and customers are continuing to get ripped off by greedy contractors. This false economy is more expensive in the long term and shows a lack of strategic planning by senior management.
We understand at times of extreme unforeseen weather or workloads there may be a need for temporary help but this should only be of short duration.
However, the daily rates to Individuals and contractors is ‘eye watering’ when the same, if not better, skills and knowledge are often available in-house and severely overlooked.
More concerning is the gradual creeping in of outsourcing without meaningful consultation and any true cost-benefit analysis being undertaken.
Also, employers are cynically using the skills gap as a way to send relevant work externally which not only compounds the loss of skills, knowledge and experience within our sector, it also creates an inexcusable reliance on these external providers for years to come.
We must act to challenge this negative quick fix behaviour and short-termism to preserve permanent and secure employment for our existing and future members, ensuring that key roles are back filled with permanent staff.
Therefore, we call on the WET SGE to:
1)Share UNISON’s “Bargaining for insourcing” guide to all branches in the Water, Environment and Transport service group.
2)Consider giving a high priority, at this year’s Branch Seminar ‘, to the discussion on the benefits of insourcing and the urgent need to stop all forms of outsourcing.