General Secretary Ian Lawrence and National Co-Chair Chris Winters formed part of a Napo/UNISON/GMB delegation who met with the Secretary of State for Justice Michael Gove and Prisons and Rehabilitation Under-Secretary Andrew Selous, yesterday.
A fuller report of the key issues that were discussed will follow in due course and Family Court Members can be assured that we will be seeking an early meeting with the Justice Minister Caroline Dineage at the earliest opportunity.
The Sodexo EVR and Job cuts disputes
As members would expect, Napo adopted a robust position on the current disputes within the Sodexo owned CRCs and provided a comprehensive briefing to the Ministers about the intention of the contractor to make 600 staff redundant and to seek to vary a National Agreement and override established collective bargaining machinery that had been underwritten by Mr Gove's predecessor.
This contractor is seeking to move away from a nationally agreed, and funded scheme for enhanced voluntary redundancy (EVR). As members will be aware a Modernisation Fund was shared out amongst the CRC contractors following the share sale to facilitate future staff reductions.
It has been extraordinarily difficult to convince this contractor of their obligations to recognise the national collective bargaining agreements that were carried across on share sale and Napo and our sister unions are seriously concerned at the damage that may be caused by Sodexo and their (in our opinion) totally unjustifiable programme of 600 job cuts.
Their actions to effectively undercut the EVR scheme payments formula by more than half without formal negotiations and the unions having an opportunity to consult with our members is a serious matter that undermines the authority of the Secretary of States guarantees within the National Staff Transfer and Protections Agreement.
The unions believe that this company, who posted massive operating profits earlier this year should honour the expectation of staff who, through no fault of their own, face the employment scrapheap at the same time as Sodexo revealed to us they are seeking a variation of the contract with the MoJ on the basis that they have not received the IT support that they were expecting.
NOMS Chief Executive Michael Spurr has been supportive of our view that full EVR terms should be payable as was the case for staff who have already left the service, and at yesterday's meeting with Michael Gove the unions asked for a firm line from NOMS Contract Management to re-affirm the requirement to use this fund for the purpose for which it was intended. We also asked the Minister to consider calling the parties in to see him personally.
The Minister has agreed to consider our representations.
Unions issue position statement
Meanwhile the attached response (click here) has been sent to Sodexo and copied to the Chief Executives of the CRCs as well as the MoJ Ministers. Members may find this useful when they attend the staff briefings that are due to be held tomorrow.
An important meeting of union representatives from the six Sodexo CRCs will take place on Friday and, as can be seen from the unions’ letter, further meetings are scheduled with Sodexo next Monday.
More news will be issued at the earliest opportunity.
IAN LAWRENCE CHRIS WINTERS & YVONNE PATTISON
General Secretary National Co-Chairs