A further update on pay
It’s been a while since I’ve been in touch in relation to Communisis’s proposal on the 2020. But I’ve been busy in the background having further discussions with the business. I now have a further update for you.
Both Accord and Unite members provided feedback and rejected the proposal – although there were some slight variations across the sites, I have represented your views that this proposal was not, overall, acceptable and many voiced that it was a breach of the trust.
Communisis have returned to the negotiating table with a revised offer which they hope addresses some of the concerns that were raised. We now have two options available.
-
The original proposal – a non-consolidated award payable in January 2022 representing the value of the 3% of your overall pay (basic pay + overtime worked in 2021). Those who are red-ringed receive a lump sum equivalent to what they would have received under our original 3 year pay deal. Anyone made redundant during 2021 would receive the pro-rated equivalent of the payment.
-
Postpone (i.e. defer) the pay increase from 2021 to 2022. This would mean a zero percent increase in 2021 and a 3% increase in 2022. Anyone leaving due to redundancy in 2021 would have their pay calculated on the +3% increase).
Here are a couple of things to consider:
- Both options represent a zero percent increase in 2021, however option 1 has a significant benefit over option 2 in that you will receive a lump sum payment + if a pay agreement is reached for 2022, you’ll receive that too
- If you decide option 2, it should be noted that this agreement will take precedence over any future negotiated pay increase for Communisis. This means that if we reach agreement across Communisis for a pay increase in 2022 that is less than 3% you will still receive the 3%. If it were to be greater than 3%, the new agreement would supersede this agreement. It is, in my view, unlikely that a pay increase would be greater than 3%.
- Communisis cannot guarantee that there will be no further redundancies made in 2021, whichever option you decide upon. However, if we are unable to reach an agreement, Communisis will be in a position where it will need to revisit cost savings sooner rather than later.
We will be returning to the table with Communisis on the 19th January, so please let me know your thoughts before then. Please respond to [email protected] with Option 1, Option 2, or Reject.
Improving our communications
I’m very conscious that 2021 is likely to bring the same challenges as last year and therefore we need to start to consider the best way of staying connected with our members. We have up until this point relied upon email, and I trialled using MS Teams. Our sister colleagues in Unite have been using WhatsApp which seems to have been working well.
I’m investigating what technological solution we can utilise, and I will be in touch again about this shortly. There are data protection considerations to consider before we do anything. But I wanted to let you know this was something we were thinking about.
