10 January: Got an appeal? Contact us right away!

If you have an appeal lodged and your hearing is scheduled with a date set, please contact the Branch at the earliest opportunity.

"This will enable us to provide you with the representation and advice required", says service conditions officer Tam McKirdy.

"We also suggest you contact the Modernising Pay Team and request a copy of the assessment panel's notes".

6 June 2011: Job Evaluation Appeals
Over 300 job evaluation appeals were submitted in the wake of pay modernisation. At the moment these posts are being re-assessed by the council's job evaluation team in light of the information supplied by both line managers and staff.

Some have been completed and you may well have had a letter indicating the outcome of that assessment - if you are not happy with it you should advise UNISON that you wish to carry on to the formal appeal hearing - just e-mail your details to the branch at branchoffice @unison- edinburgh.org.uk or contact your local steward.

We will be keeping a close eye on the outcomes of these initial assessments as this will be an indicator of whether the job evaluation scheme stands up to scrutiny or not. It is expected that the first Appeals will begin at the end of June and they will run for about six to nine months.

8 Nov 2010: APPEALS GUIDANCE: Guidance for members and stewards for submitting appeals. UNISON Deadline 17 December 2010

14 July: MODERNISING PAY: Some members have been raising queries about the dismissal and re-engagement letters. Click here for more advice on completing them (pdf)

5 July: DISMISSAL AND RE-ENGAGEMENT

Almost 5,000 people protected their legal rights by not signing up to 'Modernising Pay' voluntarily but now the situation is different.

Letters from the Council are now going out to give notice to terminate your current contract and offering you re-engagement. UNISON advice is you must accept this offer, albeit under duress, to keep your job.

If the details of your current job are wrong on the letter, contact your manager immediately.

As the council tries to get you to volunteer to give up your contract, UNISON says 'Don't Sign First Time' to keep your legal rights. Special UNISON News May 2010 (pdf)

DON'T SIGN FIRST TIME New UNISONNews Modernising Pay Update

- 5 March 2010: GMB Ballot: Joint staff update from the City of Edinburgh Council, UNISON and Unite the Union

UNISON urges council to negotiate, not impose

Special briefing issued on Modernising Pay: Up to date advice on what happens next.. (pdf)

 

UNISON calls for real talks as council serves notice on 'Modernising Pay'.

Instead of imposing, the council should be talking and finding ways to stop staff becoming among lowest paid in Scotland (6 Jan)

Consultation brings clear rejection of proposals

UPDATE 1 November 2009: The Branch carried out a lengthy and wide ranging consultation throughout August and September including nearly 40 meetings of members, online enquiry forms and telephone queries.

“This has been one of the largest, most worthwhile and constructive exercises we have ever done”, said Kevin Duguid, Service Conditions Co-ordinator. “The overwhelming majority of our members have said very clearly that they reject the package of proposals as they stand”. “We have given a detailed response to Council reflecting that and we await a formal response from them. Our colleagues in our sister unions Unite & GMB have also rejected the proposals.”

The position as of today is as follows:-

1) An updated UNISON bulletin to all 9,000 members arrived from the printers on Friday 30 October and will come out this week. That will cover all of the issues so far and will be posted on the website from Wednesday 4 November. Further bulletins will follow later in the month as the Council's response becomes clearer.

2) The union has just receieved the Council's response and this will be analysed in detail and further reports will follow.

3) There are complex legal issues involved and UNISON cannot always report on these due to legal restrictions. However the union has had numerous meetings with legal and other advisers. At this stage, our advice is that, alongside all the other problems with the Council's proposals, they do not meet the legal equality criteria. Further updates on this will follow.

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Council plans 'fail to meet equality criteria'
14 August 2009: UNISON is taking further advice as specialist reports suggest 'Modernising Pay' will not deliver on equality. As reported before, for legal reasons the union cannot ballot on a scheme that is not 'equality proof'. The issue is complicated by the Council adding conditions changes on top of the job evaluation process. The Branch is now taking further advice from national officials, inlcuding whether we can have a separate ballot on the conditions aspect.

Alongside this, the Branch is collating all the views gathered from the 21 consultation meetings with members over the last three weeks, before taking those views back into negotiations with the Council. Look out for more details.

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Branch Consultation

26 June 2009: The City of Edinburgh Council has begun briefing and writing to staff about 'Modernising Pay'. This could be the biggest change in pay and conditions we have ever seen.

We are currently writing to members to tell then how UNISON is going to consult its members on the Council's proposals.

The proposals cover two main areas. The first is the outcome of job evaluation which affects your grade and pay. The other is a host of other changes to conditions the council wants to implement.

PLEASE NOTE: These are proposals from the Council. It is the Council that is bringing forward the plans and as yet there is no agreement with the unions. Over the next few weeks we will be putting the following on the website: