Public and Commercial Services Union

Union re-ballots PCS members in English Heritage

PCS Members in EH should be receiving the ballot paper and attached documents this week (w/c 27 July 2009).

Following the result of the industrial action ballot, PCS resumed talks with EH, at its invitation, to look at ways of improving the 2008 to 2011 pay offer for its members. After three much focussed meetings, sufficient change emerged to necessitate in PCS re-balloting its members.

Although the changes come nowhere near to meeting our aspirations, for example: of removing regional pay and market rates or at least reducing the number of bands, of retaining WWA/TTW , of increasing consolidated increases for the lower paid, we did achieve some significant improvements.

The introduction of a Third tier to VOTM spot rate scale. is a major advance in improving the level of pay for site based staff by raising the standard rate by 4% to a maximum rate that will ensure that everyone, with at least two seasons service, in the National regional band will automatically go up to £13, 742 (pro-rata according to hours worked) by April 2010. The other regional bands are raised correspondingly. Our concern previously in negotiations was the decrease of the basic rate, due to the linkage with regional market rates, and this move now means that even in the lowest paid regional band the new maximum rate is above the “old” rate of £13,499. Improving the level of pay was a priority.

In addition, because there are a considerable number of our members over the maximum the introduction of the third tier will pull a sizeable proportion back into the scale, which will mean that any future increases will be consolidated into salary for them too. For those who will still be over the maximum a £150.00 non-consolidated payment (pro-rata according to hours worked) will be made in April 2010 on top of the 2% non-consolidated pay award.

For those who are eligible for the WWA/TTW buy-out the amount has been increased and has now been varied according to how many years an individual has to retirement. This goes some way towards recognising the impact on pension accruel for those who may still have many years until retirement.

We also achieved:

• a concession for those who previously were “promoted” on walkthroughs
• finalised the new contract
• agreed on separate discussions on the recognition scheme

Remaining in place from the previous pay offer are the £500.00 non-consolidated payment (pro-rated according to hours worked) to be paid to all Visitor Operations staff and bands E and F as well as the 2% consolidated for 2008, the 2% non consolidated increases for 2009 and 2010.

We have achieved some improvements, did impact on a building block (the VOTM spot salary scale) and we'll continue to fight the battle on regional pay and market related pay alongside colleagues across PCS, both nationally and within EH.

Important lessons learnt by EH is that it needs to ensure that those who represent it at the negotiating table have the authority to take decisions and implement them (as in these recent talks) without having to go through a chain of command, causing even more protracted negotiations. And that meaningful negotiation means that both sides get to propose and discuss ideas, with a flexible approach.