Birmingham UNISON is celebrating after seeing off the threat of redundancy to more than 100 Connexions staff in the city.
After a long and hard-fought campaign, the branch was told this week that the threat of compulsory redundancies for Birmingham Connexions staff had been withdrawn. Employers would not be going through the redundancy selection process which was due to start at the end of February.
A staff notice from the acting lead officer for Connexions stated: “No further redundancies from our service are required at this stage”.
Some 105 out of 172 full-time equivalent posts had been under threat, but the council is now looking to make savings through alternative means, including voluntary severances and redeployments.
“There will still be terrible service cuts,” commented joint UNISON branch secretary Graeme Horn after the announcement. “And the service will be a targetted one, not a universal one anymore.
“We continue to oppose these cuts in service and the drastic impact these will have on a generation of young people in the city, who are facing the worst conditions in living memory when attempting to enter the jobs market.
“But without the opposition of our stewards committee in Connexions, the Connexions staff themselves, our campaigning allies in Birmingham Against The Cuts and all those who have supported the Save Connexions campaign, the cuts would have been far, far, worse,” he added.
“This is a victory for those who have been prepared to take industrial action, to take round petitions, to hand out leaflets to the public, to lobby their councillors, to march on the Council House, to speak at meetings throughout the city, to give endless interviews to the media and, above all, to never give up.”
