Agency workers at Makerfield to be paid below AA Band Minimum?

By our calculations the situation is more disgraceful than even we suspected. 

The job advert has now been tracked down and shows that the actual wage starts at the National Minimum Wage of £6.50ph, and the maximum is 8.62ph but that this is "dependent upon experience".

At these hourly rates if the agency staff were to work our contracted hours of 37 hours a week this would mean an annual rate of £12,506pa if paid at £6.50ph, and £16,584 if paid at £8.62.    

The DWP AO minimum is £16590pa. Both advertised rates of pay and any inbetween are lower. The £6.50ph rate (based upon 37 hours a week) amounts to 75.38% of the AO minimum.

However, it is worse than that:

The DWP AA minimum is £15,150 pa. The £6.50ph rate is therefore below even the pay band minima of the grade below AO.

Neither therefore comply with the DWP statement that they will be paid at the AO minimum. 

The only way that they can earn the AO band minimum is if they are on the £8.62 rate but work an additional 6 minutes per day, equivalent to an additional 26 hours work over a year, or an additional 3.51 days.

What a rip off against the agency workers. What an insult to our Contact Centre members.

No to agency workers!

The intention to bring in agency staff to Makerfield Contact Centre can only be viewed as an attempt to undermine PCS members terms and conditions and PCS has no alternative but to actively oppose this. 

To do it in a town where there has recently been successful industrial action, by the Bakers Union at Hovis, against agency workers being brought in on lesser terms and not just insisting that any were on equal rights with the main workforce from day one but taken on directly by the company. This puts the Branch in a particularly difficult position. It is frankly a challenge that we cannot ignore.

Whilst we have had it confirmed that they would be paid the AO band minimum, it remains unconfirmed what annual leave (paid or unpaid) they would qualify for.

What we do know is that they will not be DWP employees. They will not be covered by the Contact Centre Standard Operating Approach (SOA) or the Contact Centre Dispute Agreement.

They will also be expected to work longer hours than DWP staff with set hours between 9am and 5.30pm with an hour for lunch. They will have no scheduling preferences.

DWP has yet to confirm (and it is doubtful that they will) have rights to:
- trade union recognition
- not to be dismissed without notice
- rest breaks outside of a lunch break
- paid or unpaid sick leave
- paid or unpaid special leave
- flexible working (as they will have set hours)
- pension rights
- performance pay
- be covered by DWP Policies including the safeguards within the; Probation, Attendance

Management, Discipline, People Performance, Dispute Resolution, Diversity and Equality, Wellbeing at Work or Health and Safety to name just a few.

Only after 12 weeks could they under employment law get access to:
- paid bank holidays
- pregnancy rights including even the basic right to paid time for antenatal appointments
- rest breaks

This demonstrates the difference between a unionised workplace and agency status. We have to resist the abolition of workers' rights at all costs.

Clearly the DWP prefers to offset the recruitment fees paid to the Brook Agency than recruit directly and pay towards the terms & conditions of employing it's own staff. Whether this costs more to the taxpayer has clearly been seen as less important to sending a clear message about how they would like to staff the DWP in future. 

The idea that our own members will be expected to train, mentor and even Line Manage them is totally unacceptable.

Whilst we believe that the CCS network is seriously understaffed and needs urgent recruitment we reject the DWPs stated reasons for bringing in agency staff rather than directly recruiting. The staffing situation has been known for months if not years but constantly denied by CCS until now.

It is not believable that staff could not have been recruited directly within the same timeline that has been used to negotiate with the Agency. 

This is a blatent attempt to undermine PCS at Makerfield where we have nearly 90% membership and a proud history of supporting campaign activity. The branch is sure that members will continue to show solidarity in opposing this attack.

We must oppose attempts to pitch worker against worker. If we do not challenge this then there will be a group of workers, on site, unable to participate in any campaign to improve terms, conditions or even enforcement of the Contact Centre Dispute Agreement. Whilst at the same time undermining any attempts to get them civil service status.

Branch reps will be meeting early next week to decide upon a response to put to members.

Temps to cover AO's in Makerfield CC

In its latest panic measure to desperately try and paper over the cracks DWP has announced today that it is to take on 80 temps from the Brook Street Bureau recruitment agency to cover AO vacancies until 31st March 2015.

DWP is currently advertising externally for new AO staff to join as Fixed Term Appointments. However this recruitment exercise has been undersubscribed and has not generated the expected level of applications. As a result the department has decided to throw all of its long-standing, tried and tested recruitment policies and procedures out of the window and is resorting to taking on agency temps to cover core front line AO vacancies.

Unprecedented insult

Agency temps have never been used to fill AO posts in DWP before. It is an insult to every AO in the department that DWP is now saying to them that their post can be filled with an agency temp at a moment’s notice, irrespective of their skills, experience or qualifications.

Start on Monday

The first temps are expected to be in post as early as 27th October. PCS was not even told of the possibility of this happening until Monday 20th October. DWP have agreed to review the use of agency temps to see how it works, after two or three weeks.

Not DWP staff

Temps remain employed by their agency, in this case the Brook Street Bureau, and so will not be DWP members of staff. They will be paid the AO Min but on top of that DWP will have to pay a fee to the Brook Street Bureau for their ‘service’ in providing these people.

Criminal Records Checks

Some of the temps will start in training with DWP before they have had a criminal records check. DWP were clear that they must not have access to DWP IT systems or talk to the public until the checks have been done. Brook Street Bureau claim they can do this check in one week whereas it takes DWP up to three weeks for the same check. The temps should receive the same new entrant training and induction as directly employed staff.

Casual Staff

PCS asked management why they would not use temporary, directly employed casual staff instead. No real explanation was given for why they could not do this.

Undermining the civil service

PCS sees the use of agency temps as a serious undermining of the civil service. What were once seen as jobs with above average terms and conditions, reasonable career prospects and good job security are now being reduced to the level of agency temps. Temps have far worse rights at work than directly employed staff. They would have the same pay, hours and annual leave as directly employed staff but would not be covered by DWP policies on other terms and conditions like sick pay, special leave, etc.

PCS has been assured that this is a one-off measure to deal with an emergency shortage of staff in CCS. However there is a real risk that this is the thin end of the wedge and part of a wider strategy by the employer to casualise employment in DWP.

Given that 80 temps equates to just 0.125% of the total DWP staffing, it is unclear why such a tiny shortage amounts to a crisis requiring these emergency measures.

The 80 temps are to be used at Grimsby and Makerfield contact centres. DWP will have had no say in the people who Brook Street Bureau supply and will have no idea whether they are in any way suitable for these posts, or whether there is any intention for the temps to stay for more than a few days.

PCS Opposition

PCS has made it clear to the employer that we are completely opposed to this decision. Agency temps have no role in the civil service and PCS will campaign for an end to their use as soon as possible. PCS has asked for a meeting at with senior management in the department to seek a reversal of this decision.

While it may take a little longer to run a proper recruitment exercise, this is still what DWP should do. If DWP is unable to attract people to apply for its vacancies then maybe DWP should start to look at what it is offering new recruits. A good start would be a substantial increase in the AO rates of pay to ensure DWP is competitive with other employers.

Contact centre services update

This article provides an update of recent meetings with CCS management.

Staffing

CCS has been significantly affected by the recent movement of staff around DWP Operations. Management acknowledged that they are currently struggling with some of their business priorities and that there could be a need for further moves around Operations.

8 Contact centres are leaving, or have recently left, CCS

• Newcastle has moved to Child Maintenance Group
• DWP Visiting Booking Centre in Cardiff will no longer become a contact centre.
• Taunton, Newport and Pembroke Dock are moving to the Fraud and Error Service.
• Bangor has become a Universal Credit (UC) site.
• Middlesbrough will move to UC from December.
• Dundee and Makerfield will also now move to UC early next year.

Staff coming into CCS

• DWP Visiting Booking Centre in Glasgow brings c.100 staff into CCS.
• 6 satellite sites in Boston, Chatham, Lancaster, Luton, Redruth and Skegness bring c. 60 staff into CCS
• 600 part time Fixed Term Appointments are being recruited into CCS, mainly to replace the staff moving to FES.
• 200 apprentices have been recruited

A further impact of all these changes is that management decided to utilise an existing contract to outsource the remaining JSA First Contact (FC) line to Capita.

PCS’ concerns on staffing

PCS has raised our concerns that all of this will leave CCS in a position where it does not have enough staff. Management contend that the recruitment, all of which is on a part-time basis, coupled with the way in which they have deployed the 200 apprentices, is designed to specifically cover Mondays and the busiest times of day, thereby making better use of their staff resource.

They also maintain that, as sites convert to UC, the call work will go with them, thus reducing the demand on CCS. The possibility of further recruitment to support the moves to UC cannot be ruled out. Management also accepted that the new recruits, all in the AO grade, would need team leaders and confirmed that this would be done by offering TDA and then taking further FTA recruits from reserve lists to backfill the TDA. However, they acknowledged that there would be continued pressure until the new recruits were in place.

Recruitment

PCS argued that the recruitment should be on a permanent basis and questioned why CCS were only offering 12 month FTA contracts when the recruitment more recently announced in other parts of Operations is being done on the basis of offering 18 month contracts. We also argued that they should use the current recruitment to bring the JSA FC work back in-house.

CCS appeared unaware that the other recruitment exercises were offering 18 month contracts. However, they stated they were doing a 12 month plan which looked at all options and changes to the service, which was why the recruitment was only for that period. The FTA staff being recruited will join on contracts that can enable them to be converted to permanency. Part of that plan will be looking at service changes over that period and bringing FC JSA work back into CCS is one of the things they will be looking at as part of that review. We expect full consultation on this review.

PCS recruitment

As the new staff are recruited local reps should liaise with local management to ensure that a trade union induction talk is provided for all of the new entrants, to ensure they are given the opportunity to join PCS.

Satellite sites

PCS raised some specific concerns about the 6 satellite sites that were coming over to CCS. When announcing the setting up of these sites, management indicated that they expected normal CCS rules to apply. All of these will be small teams of people based in Jobcentres, that will present a number of logistical problems if the normal approach to scheduling and preferences is imposed.

Management agreed to look at this, and appeared to acknowledge that there were practical issues around things like scheduling until 6pm. They confirmed that all sites will be doing JEL work, with the exception of Skegness, where they will handle SF Enquiries. Management stated that there were no firm go-live dates as yet and that all risk assessments and necessary work will be done on these sites to make them suitable for contact centre style work.

They also believed that all staff, again other than in Skegness where it was a specific team that had previously been attached to Benefits Directorate, were volunteers following Expression of Interest exercises. We advised them that in Boston, at least, it had not been done that way and that staff had been selected. They agreed to take this away and look at it, but believed that it was really an issue for WSD, who had been responsible for providing the staff to CCS.

Leave

Management believed that they had “maxed out” leave over the summer period, but accepted that there had been pressures on short notice leave and that this had been difficult to allow through into September. However, they believed that the pressure on leave was not now the same and that leave was available for people to book. The one caveat they had was their on-going belief that Monday will always be an issue. Al s a result they have targeted the current recruitment at Monday’s, stating all new recruits will be expected to have Monday as one of their working days, which should ease the pressure on Mondays in the future. They categorically denied that there was any manipulation of Workforce Manager in order to restrict access to annual leave.

They also stated that they wanted to delay decisions on leave for the festive period in order to maximise what they could allow. They stated they could make a decision in October but that “a lot of people would be disappointed”, but, if they wait until November, when the newly recruited staff were in place, they will have a better picture of the situation, and that will give them more leeway in allowing as much leave as possible.

PCS recognized the logic of waiting until the new recruits were in place before allocating Christmas leave. However, we did make it clear that if our members were advised of a delay in the authorisation of Christmas leave in order to allow as much leave as possible then that would lead to an anticipation of a significant level of leave being allowed.

80% preferences for part time staff

PCS has been seeking clarity on this issue for some time. CCS have looked into this to see how sites apply the 80% preferences for part time staff. They stated that there is not a standard position and the methods of applying the 80% preferences vary from site to site.

However they were able to confirm that all part time staff should be receiving their 80% preferences. If there is a week where this does not happen then that would be offset by other weeks where 100% preferences are given. Thereby, taken over a longer period, 80% preferences are achieved. If there are any part time members who do not believe that they are receiving their 80% preferences then they should initially raise this locally through their local rep and escalate the issue as necessary.

AHT

They confirmed that they had written to all CCS staff to advise that AHT would no longer be an individual performance metric.

Future look

Management indicated that they would be doing at lot of work in the next six months, looking at the work CCS does and how they do it, and they would consult TUS throughout the process. Part of what is being looked at is the Service Centre approach. This is already the business model in Pensions, CMG and the Disability and Carers part of Benefits, and is the way in which UC is being rolled out.

Management were keen to build on the work done in Chorlton and have formally launched, what they are now calling, Service Centre One in Derby. It is clear that a move away from the failed separation of CCS and Benefits is now beginning to take shape and we are keen that this is done in the best way possible for our members. We will keep you updated of any developments.

Focus on Mondays

It was unacceptable to find that later in the same week as our meeting with CCS management, they had written to all staff notifying them of various contingency measures, aimed at “maximizing performance to improve customer service”. CCS management did not discuss the need for any of these measures in the meeting with PCS shortly before. Our initial enquiries about this met with an, equally unacceptable response. We have now written a further letter challenging the need for these measures and making our feelings clear.

What's your thoughts or comments?

If you have any questions, examples you wish to raise or feedback/comments on anything in this article please speak to your local rep.

Check how little your pay has gone up in the last 6 years

PCS urges all DWP staff to go to RM and check how their pay has been affected by the Government pay and pensions policy over the past 6 years since the economic crash.

The two examples below show clearly how increased pension contributions and the pay freeze have left us worse off as inflation soars ahead of wages.

Example 1: an AO in East London

An AO in East London found by checking on RM that his monthly take home pay in September 2008 was £1,437.10. Monthly take home pay in September 2014 is now £1,438.64. So in 6 years take home pay has gone up by only £1.54.

Example 2: an EO in London

An EO in East London found by checking on RM that his monthly take home pay in September 2008 was £1,805. Monthly take home pay in September 2014 is now £1,816. So in 6 years take home pay has gone up by only £11 a month.

Whatever tiny pay rise these staff have had has been swallowed up by the increased pension contribution.

15 Oct pickets

Join us tomorrow

Do something positive to show that we wont go away with our demands. Join your local picket line.

- Wigan Jobcentre 

- Makerfield Contact Centre

- Leigh Jobcentre

- Atherton Jobcentre

and 

- Ashton in Makerfield Jobcentre

Pickets start approximately 7am.

Garston Contact Centre members take 5 days strike action to oppose office closure

n May PCS members in Garston Contact Centre in the DWP Liverpool Branch voted by a majority of five and a half to one in favour of strike action to fight the closure of the office.

95% of PCS members at Garston Contact Centre supported two 1 day strikes on 16 May and 23 June to fight the proposed closure of their office and the forced transfer of all staff to either Bootle CC or Birkenhead CMG. On both strike days around 30 pickets including ordinary members made lively picket lines.
PCS members at Garston will now take 5 days strike action from Monday 13 October to Friday 17 October.

Members Angry
Members are angry because management say they need to close the office to save money but DWP management have not taken into account the needs of the staff. Garston, Bootle CC and Birkenhead CMG are not offices next door to one another. Most members will face difficult journeys and even management accept that a good number of staff are outside their contractual mobility for both offices.

Over a 1,000 DWP jobs have been cut in Liverpool in the last decade and many members at Garston are only there because they had to move there when DWP shut the Liverpool Pensions and Liverpool Call Centre sites.

For some staff closing Garston would mean their second and in some cases third forced transfer due to cuts and office closures over the last ten years.
Concessions agreed

The Group Executive Committee (GEC) has fully opposed the closure and supported fully the members. So far negotiations supported by strike action have achieved several welcome concessions such as –
Excess fares extended from 3 to 5 years.
Alternative postings to Belle Vale office for all staff with mobility, health or caring problems.

Agreement to recruit at Birkenhead CMG instead of compulsorily transferring Garston staff to Birkenhead CMG.
Despite these concessions the great majority of staff will still be compulsorily transferred to Bootle if Garston closes. Management have described this as a lift and drop of the work but our members at Garston say - you can’t lift and drop people and treat them like office furniture. GEC say this is a closure too far.

Reasonable union proposals rejected
PCS only takes industrial action as a last resort. After a series of further talks the GEC this week escalated negotiations to a meeting with the Network Services Director Myrtle Lloyd. The GEC again fully opposed the closure of Garston and put forward what we believe are very reasonable proposals for setting up a satellite contact centre nearer to Garston as an alternative to compulsory moves to Bootle if DWP insist on closing the Garston site.

Management refused to agree to set up a satellite mainly on grounds of cost. Yet management have already set up satellite contact centres in Skegness, Luton, Lancaster, Redruth, Boston and Gravesend where nobody wanted them.
Now when creating a satellite site would overcome the genuine concerns of staff at Garston suddenly there is no money. The GEC stressed strong disappointment at this response.
50% Strike pay

All PCS members will take part in a 1 day national strike on Wednesday 15 October as part of a TUC week of action for fair pay with millions of other public servants in Local Government, the NHS and Education.

The PCS national disputes committee has agreed to authorise 50% strike pay for all members that take part in the 5 day strike over the closure of Garston CC. Strike pay will be paid for 4 days – Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, but not the national strike day on Wednesday.
Garstons fight is your fight

These 5 days of strike action by our members at Garston shows their fantastic commitment in their fight to keep their office open. It will mean a considerable loss of pay for them.
The closure of the Garston CC is part of the government and DWP cuts. The NEC and the GEC believe that the Garston members fight is a key part of the bigger fight against the cuts that affect every PCS member. The action they are taking is action on behalf of us all.

Urgent bucket collections
That is why the GEC is strongly calling on every branch to urgently arrange bucket collections. Please ask every member to give generously to help the members at Garston financially. Let’s make sure that members at Garston fighting to keep their office open are not left out of pocket.

Please send donations to – Mr A. Campbell. 67A Garston Old Road, Liverpool, L19 9AD.  Make payments out to - PCS DWP Liverpool branch hardship fund.
Please also send messages of support to leeds@pcs.org.uk
 

Branch Hardship fund - 15 October

Just a reminder that the branch operates an hardship fund which you can apply for assistant from should you need to following days of industrial action such as the one coming up on the 15 October.

If you need assistants or if you have any questions please speak to your local workplace representative.