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Pay update 23 - pay petition

25 January 2010

As part of our ongoing pay campaign in the Ministry of Defence, we asked members to sign a petition on the Number10.gov website asking the Prime Minister to personally intervene to stop the Ministry of Defence from slashing the pay of their lowest paid workers.

The petition closed on 14 October 2009 by which time over 1500 members had signed the petition. We have noted that it has taken over three months for a response to be delivered from the government, but those members that signed the petition should now have finally received an email response personally from the 10 Downing Street website.

The response (copied below) regrettably does nothing to try to resolve our dispute on pay, and instead merely restates the department’s position regarding the cut in pay and pensions of staff in the E1 and E2 pay band.

The response is also misleading when it claims that “Everyone above the new pay band maxima has been given pay protection”. This is partly true, but this pay protection is only guaranteed for the duration of the pay award and effectively expires in July next year.

Our pay campaign therefore will now be stepped up and will continue until we have achieved fair pay for all of our members.

We continue to press the department to work with us to resolve the dispute on pay. Last week PCS negotiators met with the Minister for the Armed Forces, Bill Rammell. He gave us an assurance that he would look into the ongoing dispute.

We very much welcome this and we have made clear to him that we believe a negotiated settlement is possible if the will exists to find an acceptable way forward. As ever we will keep members informed of any developments through regular updates and briefings.

Grievance Hearings

A number of members have contacted our union regarding the forthcoming pay grievance hearing, over 200 of our members have lodged a grievance and we encourage all members to attend their respective hearing.

We have agreed with the department that all of the grievance hearings will be held in Main Building, London. They will take place on Friday 29 January 2010 and Tuesday 2 February 2010. The hearings will be collective and will deal with a number of similar grievances at the same time.

Our union will provide full representation at these meetings by either Chris Dando or KC Jones. Members are not required to make representation but are encouraged to make any points they wish to those responsible for cutting their pay.

It is important to note that each of these grievances has been submitted under the recognised grievance procedure, therefore all travel and subsistence costs fall to the department and members intending to travel should ask their line manager to arrange payment of these costs.

In the meantime we are also preparing our test cases for employment tribunal (which will proceed if the department rejects our members’ grievances) and a case management discussion was held with a tribunal chairman last week. Following this positive hearing we anticipate moving quickly to formal legal action once the grievance hearings have been held and the formal legal hearing is likely to be held in the spring.

Winning justice for every member on pay remains our top priority and our dispute will continue and escalate until this is achieved.

Original petition

“We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to personally intervene to stop the Ministry of Defence from slashing the pay of their lowest paid workers.” Details of Petition: “The MoD intends to reduce the pay band maxima for non-industrial civil servants at E1 and E2 pay bands. This will take effect from 1 May 2009. It is completely unjust to penalise the lowest paid staff in the department by cutting their pay in such a manner. The MoD propose to cut consolidated – and contractual – pay and replace it with a non-consolidated allowance. It is equally wrong to force thousands of hard working staff to accept non consolidated pay awards and also miss out on proposed additional progression payments based on length of service that staff with less service will receive. The proposed pay ‘protection’ allowance is only guaranteed until 2010 and this will have a detrimental impact upon their future earnings and pensions. I ask that you personally intervene in this process so that we can find an acceptable solution to this problem. I know that my union, PCS, has proposed a number of ways to resolve this issue and I would hope that my employer would seriously consider these. I hope that you will agree that low paid government employees should not have to take a pay cut.”

The government’s response


MOD increased the bottom of the Band E pay bands in 2008 by around 9% and they will continue to rise by between 3% and 6% in 2009 and 2010.

When drawing up proposals for the 2008 pay award, MOD determined that the pay levels for bands E1 and E2 were the highest in Whitehall and out of kilter with the wider market. In addition, MOD has very few recruitment and retention problems at Band E. The MOD took a decision to set new pay band maxima with effect from 1 May 2009. Everyone above the new pay band maxima has been given pay protection. In implementing the new limits, in August 2008 the MOD gave all those above the new maxima a 2% pensionable allowance as well as a 0.5% lump sum cash payment. On 1 May 2009 MOD converted the difference between the new pay band maxima and previous salary into a protected pay allowance which will continue to have all the characteristics of the individual’s pre-existing pay and so will be reckonable for pension, overtime and promotion purposes. In addition, the 2% allowance was added to the protected pay allowance. As a result no Band E will lose money and the pensionability of their pay has been protected.

While MOD cannot give a guarantee about anything beyond the life of the current pay settlement, they have offered to work with the Trade Unions during the period of this award to examine the pay and grading of this grouping in detail and to consider with them options for the way forward.

 

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