The following bulletin has been produced by UNITE about yet another attack on services and workers being fought by union members.
What
does ‘Fair’ and ‘Open’ mean to you?
Equinox is an organization which seeks to
offer specialist care to vulnerable men and women with alcohol, drug and mental
health problems in various residential and community based services.
Equinox staff are currently threatened with
salary cuts of between 10 and 25% This affects 80% of the workforce..Of those
staff facing reductions almost half are due to lose the higher percentage. In
real terms this means many staff are being expected to accept cuts of £5,000 to
£6,000 and in some cases even more.
For many this is an impossible ask. It
risks throwing people into debt, if not poverty. Staff speak about their
inability to pay mortgages, pay for school uniforms or school trips, afford
transport to work, or access dental treatment or eye care for themselves and
their families. Union reps are contacted on a daily basis by members who are
shocked by these proposals and terrified of the future should they be
introduced. Many people have said to us that they have been put into a
situation where the only choice they have is to fight these unfair cuts. Many
fear that they may be forced ultimately to resign rather than remain in a post
which no longer pays the bills. This is obviously a terrifying prospect for all
in these harsh times.
Equinox’s answer to this seems to be that
they are prepared to lose many of their most experienced and competent staff.
In a recent communication with the union
they asserted that they believed some staff to be over qualified for their
roles with experience and skills which exceed Equinox requirements. They go on
to say, ‘ Consequently we have to accept
that some of our more qualified staff may look elsewhere.’
It would be interesting to know which
services they believe require less qualified, less experienced, less skilled
staff.
Do the commissioners know that they have
been receiving a quality of service over and above that for which they have
contracted?
Have Equinox gone so far as to inform them
of this and explain that in future they may only be able to offer reduced
quality of care?
This justification for slashing salaries is
obviously disingenuous. It is also insulting to staff and to a body of work
carried out over the years by Equinox and would appear to put the reputation
and future of Equinox in serious jeopardy.
WHO PAYS?
An ugly consequence of the proposals as
they currently stand is that a major gap in pay has been created between
managers and frontline project workers. This did not exist in the past and for
good reasons.
If these proposals go ahead Equinox will be
creating a £7,500 pay differential between an Assistant Service Manager new in
post and an experienced, highly functioning Project worker or Substance Misuse
Worker. At present the salary difference is usually a fifth of that, reflecting
the value placed on competent staff who spend the majority of their time
working with the clients and helping them move on in their recovery.
Try collating outcome monitoring indicators
or covering shifts , without competent, professional, innovative, valued, happy
staff putting the work in with the people we have chosen to help.
It is significant that the word ‘hierarchy’
is used on at least two occasions in the formal consultation paper to justify
these proposals. This strays from a recognizable Equinox ethos. As a business
model it is short sighted, regressive and doomed to failure.
It has already had a catastrophic effect on
current staff morale which management have acknowledged.
THE WAY FORWARD
Senior management should as a priority seek
to negotiate with the union. Management should work with the union to
campaign for proper funding from commissioners
Resources need to be directed into increased
training for frontline workers and management so service users and
commissioners can be offered quality services.[ Indeed Equinox already offers
some quality services at prices recognized by commissioners as reasonable.]
The attempt to compete with some of the
more ruthless low cost service providers, however tempting in these difficult
times, needs to be seen as a step which Equinox can not afford to take.
