Southend UNISON supports this Twitterstorm called by the TUC, Care4Calais and Stand Up To Racism. Stop the inhuman (and useless) policy of flying asylum seekers and refugees to be held in detention in Rwanda.
Reshare this!
Branch secretary Claire Wormald says:
#StopRwanda
Council and schools workers have already seen a 25% cut in real pay since 2010! We’ve now got inflation at 6% (the RPI rate) with gas, electricity and petrol prices soaring. That’s why our pay claim in 2021 was for 10%. It’s above inflation and would have started to undo some of the damage of the last eleven years.
We’ve been offered an insulting 1.75% (2.75% for the lowest grades) and the employers won’t shift, so we’re now balloting for industrial action and you will be getting a voting paper in December. We think now more than ever it’s time to take a stand.
Whatever your view, it is more important than ever to use your vote – The law has been changed so we now need at least 50% of all members to return their ballot papers in order to get a valid result.
Of course, we hope you’ll vote Yes! That way we can take the action that will show the employers that enough is enough and that we mean business. #VoteYes #EnoughisEnough
We wish every member, their friends and families a happy and healthy Xmas!
Scan this QR code for more information on the pay campaign
or visit https://www.unison.org.uk/our-campaigns/fair-pay-now-council-school-workers/
Today, Wednesday 28th April is International Workers Memorial day 2021.
UNISON supports the minute’s silence at 12 noon to remember workers across the world who have lost their lives doing their jobs.
The Covid pandemic makes this particularly relevant. Workers in health and front line services of all sorts have put their safety on the line for all of us – often without proper protection. No one should have to suffer unecessarily because of poor conditions, inadequate health and safety, ruthless and penny-pinching employers or failure by government.
There’s information from the national Trades Union Congress here https://www.tuc.org.uk/wmd
and from UNISON here https://magazine.unison.org.uk/2021/04/12/workplace-safety-affects-us-all/
As many people struggle through the pandemic, the extra cost of sending the children back to school now looms on the horizon.
But UNISON is here to help. There For You, our welfare charity, has launched its School Uniform Grant, offering a one-off £50 per school age child, up to a cost of £150, to help cover the cost of uniforms.
To be eligible, you must meet the following:
If you qualify, head over to UNISON’s national page to read more small print and apply.
There For You offers the School Uniform Grant every year to help out low-paid public servants. Here’s what a few of the recipients of last year’s grant had to say.
“A big thank you for your help in ensuring my daughter had the best possible start to her new high school, without this support I would have struggled.”
“Thank you so much for the uniform grant it has been a life saver. I was able to buy two new cardigans which she was desperate for! Two ties and the school’s official bag which she has always wanted.”
“Thank you so much for helping us as a family with the school uniform grant. It really took the worry out of shopping. (I’ve cried in Clarks before at the price!)”
“Thank you for supporting me with their uniform costs and enabling me to send them off looking so smart, I’m a very, very proud single mum today.”
As many people struggle through the pandemic, the extra cost of sending the children back to school now looms on the horizon.
But UNISON is here to help. There For You, our welfare charity, has launched its School Uniform Grant, offering a one-off £50 per school age child, up to a cost of £150, to help cover the cost of uniforms.
To be eligible, you must meet the following:
If you qualify, head over to UNISON’s national page to read more small print and apply.
There For You offers the School Uniform Grant every year to help out low-paid public servants. Here’s what a few of the recipients of last year’s grant had to say.
“A big thank you for your help in ensuring my daughter had the best possible start to her new high school, without this support I would have struggled.”
“Thank you so much for the uniform grant it has been a life saver. I was able to buy two new cardigans which she was desperate for! Two ties and the school’s official bag which she has always wanted.”
“Thank you so much for helping us as a family with the school uniform grant. It really took the worry out of shopping. (I’ve cried in Clarks before at the price!)”
“Thank you for supporting me with their uniform costs and enabling me to send them off looking so smart, I’m a very, very proud single mum today.”
As many people struggle through the pandemic, the extra cost of sending the children back to school now looms on the horizon.
But UNISON is here to help. There For You, our welfare charity, has launched its School Uniform Grant, offering a one-off £50 per school age child, up to a cost of £150, to help cover the cost of uniforms.
To be eligible, you must meet the following:
If you qualify, head over to UNISON’s national page to read more small print and apply.
There For You offers the School Uniform Grant every year to help out low-paid public servants. Here’s what a few of the recipients of last year’s grant had to say.
“A big thank you for your help in ensuring my daughter had the best possible start to her new high school, without this support I would have struggled.”
“Thank you so much for the uniform grant it has been a life saver. I was able to buy two new cardigans which she was desperate for! Two ties and the school’s official bag which she has always wanted.”
“Thank you so much for helping us as a family with the school uniform grant. It really took the worry out of shopping. (I’ve cried in Clarks before at the price!)”
“Thank you for supporting me with their uniform costs and enabling me to send them off looking so smart, I’m a very, very proud single mum today.”
March organised by local NHS nurses and other staff to protest at being left out of pay rises for some other areas of the public sector (like doctors and police). Part of a national day of demonstrations. Meet 11am at Basildon Hospital for a short socially-distanced march to a town centre rally. #NHSWorkersSayNo
#NHSPay15
UNISON’s General Secretary Dave Prentis issued his response to Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s Covid-19 spending statement. See the full response here.
“Proper investment in our public services would help speed the country back to recovery and more prosperous, certain times. It would heal over the deep cracks in care and the NHS exposed by the pandemic.
“With extra funds, national and local public services could provide many more jobs. A much-deserved early pay rise for health workers and council staff would mean money in their pockets to be spent on local high streets.
The national employers in local government have made what they say is their ‘final offer’ on the 2020 pay deal. If you work in the council or schools (or other groups who get the ‘NJC’ pay rise), UNISON is arranging for all members to take part in a ballot on this offer. Southend branch will soon be sending out information about how you can vote.
Find out about the employers’ offer – make up your mind whether or not to accept it: You can find information about the ‘offer’ on the national UNISON website here.
If you want to have your say, we need to make sure we have up to date contact details for you. You can update your details online at My Unison
More and more of us face formal sickness processes at work, with the stress of knowing our jobs could be on the line through no fault of our own.
Southend UNISON stewards recently took part in 2 days of training looking at how best to support members when they are faced with a formal sickness absence process.
In Southend branch we know these processes are becoming more and more common. We find cases also more often relate to stress and anxiety, often due to the volume of work and lack of management support or to long-standing underlying health issues which employers are failing to address with ‘reasonable adjustments’ as set out in the Equalities Act.
UNISON nationally and as a branch has highlighted how the massive cuts in local government funding since 2008 were bound to store up trouble as staff workloads have doubled as the workforce has been axed.
It’s coming home to roost now with increased sickness figures relating to stress are increasingly being reported.
Find out more about stress at work and what you can do to protect yourself and make our workplaces safe – see UNISON’s advice here!
Find out more about ‘reasonable adjustments’ to support your disability/health issues on the Worksmart site here
Contact your steward or the branch if you have questions, ideas or need our help.
Caron and I organised a SPEAK UP FOR SCHOOLS event at Greenways Primary School on 28th January.
The event supported by Principal Mr Ashley Eastwood raised awareness of the UNISON Consultative Ballot about support staff pay, terms and conditions and workload.
UNISON represents around 250,000 school support staff across the UK and those members do fantastic work to help children learn, keep them safe and healthy and schools running smoothly.
If you haven’t done so already VOTE TODAY and have your say on what’s happening at the school where you work.
The consultation ballot is now open and will run until 5th March.
For more information about the SPEAK UP FOR SCHOOLS campaign and to join UNISON click here.
All the best,
Jo Gull
Southend UNISON Steward, Greenways Primary School
Dear Officers, Stewards and Members,
On Thursday 6th December for SOS Day, we are focusing on the role our members play in keeping people safe. Workers in trading standards, environmental health, social services, schools and many others are the unsung heroes of our communities. However, cuts to council budgets have put these jobs under extreme pressure and our communities at risk.
Do you work in a service that helps to keep communities safe?
If so, tell us how cuts have affected your job and the service you work in.
Whether your job has obvious and high profile impact on people’s safety, or whether it’s a role that doesn’t often get any limelight but has safety implications that might surprise people, we’d like to hear from you.
So please get in touch using the form in the “tell us your story” section on the UNISON Save Our Services campaign page or contact the branch office. We will use your comments in our campaigning to highlight the impact of cuts on local services and let us know if you’re happy for us to publish your name.
What else could you do?
On SOS Day you could also hold a workplace meeting, talk to colleagues in public safety-related roles about how cuts have impacted their jobs and local services, or do something much bigger. Download the Save Our local Services toolkit and contact the branch office for some ideas!
All the best,
Claire Wormald
Branch Secretary
