Why join a union & our successes

What has Accord done for you recently in LBG?

For over 45 years, Accord has been working hard to improve members’ working lives.

Let’s look back at 2023 and some of our recent achievements in Lloyds Banking Group …

Watch the video or carry on reading for full details.

Building on our successes in 2022 as we helped members through the emerging cost-of-living crisis, we achieved even more in 2023 to help members and their families with their finances.

• We negotiated a pay deal that provided a minimum increase of £2,000 for full-time staff, the total deal was worth between 8% and 13% for all colleagues.
• We agreed a change to Group Performance Share awards and Flex payments to consolidate these into pay to give more certainty and to increase the value of the awards over time.
• And to give members even more certainty and help them plan their finances, we negotiated pay increases that will apply in both 2024 and 2025.
• On top of this, we secured an additional pro-rated £500 payment for staff in grades A to D.
• Importantly, our agreement will increase average salaries for staff in Grade A by a further 14% by April 2025.
• That means that through successive union agreements, the minimum starting salary in Lloyds Banking Group will have been increased by more than a third between March 2021 and April 2025.
• And, overall, the deal we reached for 2024 and 2025 puts almost 350 million additional pounds into members’ salaries.

None of these achievements would have been possible without the strength of Accord’s collective voice. But our work didn’t end with the pay deal. Let’s take a look at what else we achieved in 2023:

• Over three and a half million pounds in compensation was won by Accord and its legal team to settle disputes at work. That’s roughly £290,000 every month.
• And our team of specialist personal injury lawyers have negotiated tens of thousands of pounds in compensation for members who have had an accident at work or elsewhere that was no fault of their own. Importantly, every member got to keep 100% of their award.
• Through our private healthcare cashback scheme, we refunded just under £80,000 towards members’ excess payments - making access to employer funded schemes more affordable for many.
• And we made grants totalling just under £12,000 to support members who applied to our Lifelong Learning fund, set up to help members in whatever course of study they choose.
• But not everything we do is about money. We know it’s important that you’re treated with dignity and respect at work. So, we’ve introduced a network of menopause advocates available to offer support and guidance for those going through the menopause or looking for advice on how to support their friends, colleagues, or partners. Our advocates have a good listening ear and can guide you through the support that’s available.
• And we’ve kept our vibrant network of workplace reps well-trained and up to date with issues that affect colleagues in the workplace. They’re easy to access and readily available to give advice, guidance or to point you in the right direction. They’re linked to and supported by a professional, paid Accord employee so you get the best of both – a local rep supported by a professional officer.
• We all learnt a lot about health & safety during the Covid-19 pandemic, and we’ve been keen to keep the focus on this important topic. We’ve set up regular meetings with LBG’s Group Health & Safety team, negotiated changes to the inspection process, and we’re doing all we can to keep you safe and healthy at work.
• How we serve you in this fast-changing digital world is important to us and we’ve continued to make use of the tools available. We’ve invested in our website to ensure you’re able to find what you need – and we’ve been busy writing new articles, pages and helpful guides.
• We ran several wellbeing webinars with the Bank Workers’ Charity last year too – all of which are available to watch-back on the events page of our website.
• In 2023, we had nearly 4,000 calls to our helpline from members with issues at work, ranging from small queries to the big issues like disciplinaries and discrimination.
• We supported around 350 members in formal meetings. That’s roughly 7 colleagues every week who would otherwise have had to ‘go it alone’ - often in a job threatening situation.
• And there’s plenty more we do behind the scenes on a regular basis to look after our members and their livelihoods.

We’ve achieved all this, and much more, through constructive dialogue with your employer.

Now isn’t that something to shout about?