A presentation was given by Jim Burnett, the Branch Secretary, on the current situation with the single status negotiations. After a brief introduction on the background to Single Status, Jim went on to explain how things currently stood.

Following almost two years of hard work and difficult negotiations a Formal Offer was approved by Council Committee and presented to the Trade Unions in February 2007 and issued to staff. The offer had been fully costed and it was agreed that it was the best that could be attained through negotiations.

Both Trade Union and management agreed that the offer needed to be equality assessed in order to ensure that there were no parts which would contravene equality laws.
The employers and trade unions sent off the offer to get independent legal views. Our legal advice was that some adjustments were needed to the allowances in the offer as these had been harmonized from our old terms and conditions and still retained some inequalities.

On 3rd December, management subsequently came back to the Trade Union negotiators with a Final Offer. Along with this final offer management gave the Trade Unions formal notification of the commencement of a ninety day period of negotiation.
The offer includes changes to terms and conditions, including core hours and shift allowances, which we believe go much further than is necessary to allow the offer to be equality proofed.

There then followed some discussion from the hall. Many members expressed frustration over the time the process is taking and there was anger at the proposed changes to terms and conditions.
Following this discussion Ellen Beattie, the Branch Chair, put two proposals to the meeting.

The first proposal was that our negotiators continue with the current stance. This is that the offer which was put to us in February 07 should continue to be the basis on which we negotiate. Our position would be that we are will discuss changes which are necessary to remove inequalities and that the changes to core hours and allowances are unacceptable.

The second was that we, as a branch, negotiate on the new offer. Taking this as a starting point could bring about some changes but it would be doubtful if these would approach what was in the original offer.

A show of hands gave unanimous backing for the first position.

Jim closed by saying that UNISON would continue to talk to management and should there be any further major developments another all-members meeting would be called.