Its City branch is growing. It represents the interests of its members as well as undertaking the full range of normal union activities.

The City of London Corporation is the local authority for the Square Mile, although its interests stretch far wider than the city boundaries. It maintains it is independent of party politics and national negotiations. UNISON does not accept this and will continue to challenge any decisions made by the Corporation which are detrimental to our members.

UNISON, formerly Nalgo, has had a City of London Branch since 1938.

LATEST NEWS - January 2010

Town Clerk attempts to side-step negotiations on pay

Is the City’s union recognition agreement worth the paper it is written on?

The Town Clerk, after failing to reach a pay settlement with unions due to insisting on linking his offer of 1% increase to reduced annual leave for staff employed pre 1997, has sent e-mail messages to every City of London e-mail address, including generic addresses, inviting responses from both union and  non-union members to overrule staff-side opposition.

In a move described as industrial relations nonsense, Chris Duffield, the Town Clerk, has engaged a market research firm, Harris Interactive, to conduct a survey of all City of London employees inviting them to vote on the pay offer which was refused by his “recognised” union negotiators, Unite and GMB.

The survey consists of a single question:

If you had the opportunity to vote on the attached 2009 Pay Offer would you vote to accept the offer/reject the offer

The move is clearly intended to provide a result with which he can confront the staff-side negotiators as proof of their unrepresentative position on the issue of pay and annual leave.

The strategy calls into doubt the status of his recognition agreement with the two unions and raises questions as to what credibility the survey will have, whatever its result. The survey is conducted by e-mail response from individual City employees’ Outlook addresses, and therefore is not anonymous, despite being claimed to be “completely confidential” by Harris. Honouring confidentiality will mean that Harris will be unable to demonstrate the validity of its survey’s result. The survey also seems to be based on the assumption that all City staff have unproblematic access to e-mail.

The justification the Town Clerk gives for doing this is that “approximately 50% of employees are not members of one of the recognised trade unions”. This ignores UNISON membership. If UNISON membership is included, the percentage of union density is not untypical of local government - although the average density is rising - and it is therefore most unusual in the context of local authority industrial relations: to base a repudiation of the staff-side’s credentials on the fact of its membership total.

The history of this recognition agreement is well known to many long-serving UNISON members as a desperate attempt to install the only local government MSF branch in the country in order to keep UNISON out, following the collapse of its old Staff Association in 2001. Perhaps this rare confrontation between staff and employer sides is the first indication of the fragility of that arrangement.

Initial union advice to members, including UNISON members, is to ignore the survey and not to assist the Town Clerk’s manoeuvre.

2009 City Pay 'Settlement'

On the 23 November the Town Clerk released details of the 2009 pay 'settlement'.  It included a 1% pay increase back dated to 1st July and a staggered cut of 3 days leave of staff who had been in post before 1 July 1997.  This cut is estimated to hit about a third of the City of London Corporation's workforce.

The branch has responded by recommending that affected members write to the Town Clerk asserting their contractual rights.

A copy of the draft letter can be downloaded here

Full details of the pay award and the branch response can be read here

Unison's Legal Service

A couple of years ago a branch member had an accident whilst out shopping in their local supermarket.  The member fell on their back sustaining extensive brusining, pain and discomfort in the right ankle, leg & hip.

Our member took out a case using Unison’s legal service.  Unison instructed Thompson Solicitors to act on the members behalf.

At first the other side’s insurers refused to negotiate settlement ands it was necessary to commence court proceedings.  A Satisfactory settlement was agreed and the member received substantial damages.

A cheque has been received for damages.  No deductions have been made and the member has received the full amount.

Cases such as this show the value of the union’s legal service.  It shows that the union is prepared to take cases that claims companies and no win/no fee solicitors will not.

Town Clerk's briefings on recession

click here

2009 sees introduction of Performance Related Pay for grades D-J

click here

Job Evaluation

Pay and Grading Appeals

here

The Struggle must go on!

Says Bob Coote, Retired Members Secretary

in his report on the 16th Annual Pensioners Parliament

Full Report Here

Legal Briefing - Don't become one of the Unison members who lose out on the union's legal services.  Further information is available here