North-West Regional Committee concerns with pay and contract negotiations

At our last regional committee this Tuesday 15/03/16 we agreed to raise the following concerns with the union nationally regarding the progress of negotiations around the 'Employee Deal' and the joint statement released by the employer and the union.

The regional committee has the following concerns which we would like fed in to any discussions at the Group Executive. These come from the discussion at the regional committee and correspondence we have received from branches.

1.    Some members are concerned about the joint statements issued with the employer which some consider to be inappropriate in any circumstances and some consider to be inappropriate in style and content.

2.    The lack of information is causing a great deal of worry for members and the fact the employer at all levels is freely discussing the likely outcome of the talks is compounding these concerns.

3.    We do not understand why such strict confidentiality clauses have been imposed on and accepted by the union when the employer is breaching this arrangement with no apparent come back.

4.    There does no appear to have been any equality impact assessment on proposed contractual changes.

5.    We do not understand why pay and contractual terms have been combined in the same talks, seemingly without any issues of concern to the union being discussed as well, for example attendance management and other terms and conditions issues.

6.    Some members consider that the principle of a Monday to Friday week should not be conceded whatever the financial offer.  Some members are unable to work different hours and weekends due to caring and other commitments and some have  organised their lives around the present working hours and stayed in their jobs because of this. These members include some very long standing, loyal union members.  Some reps also consider that these points should not be conceded at a time when the BMA have a high profile campaign which includes the issue of weekend working and imposed contractual changes for junior doctors.

Members concerned about any aspects of the statement or union bulletins should direct their queries in the first instance to their local rep.