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sailor
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Can anyone tell me if all council employees have been offered ~£1,000 one off payment plus an extra day holiday (but their union wants more) to work three additional hours a week they already get paid for but don't have to work, i.e. they work on average 35 hours but get their first three hours overtime paid whether they work it or not.

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I believe it is just teh social work department that ahs been offered this so far. ( but i expect the whole council wil be )

 

As someone mentioned to me.. if the powers at be think this is a fair option.. they should be willign to accept that employees can pay the council a £1000 and keep there working hours as they are just now.

 

it quite cuning how this is propsed to come out in october/november where alot of employies wil see the £1000 and think ahh tha be nice for xmas..

 

It was also worked out that the manual worker will stand to loose £3000 a year on average.. and that with out the new pay grade beign settled yet.

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sailor wrote

o work three additional hours a week they already get paid for but don't have to work,

 

That is an absolute nonsense.......paying staff for 38 hours when they only work for 35 seems to me to be grounds for sacking whatever official dreamed up the idea and dismissing without compensation any councillors who knew of this but did not stop it.

 

Also seems little incentive for staff to work overtime when needed if they will be working for nothing for the first three hours.

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I belive it was dreamt up during te 70's when teh oil boom was on up her ewil sullom voe opening etc etc.. many of the council "perks" were created as a way of keepign peopel working with te council instead of going of to work for the oil companies, and have stuck ever since..

 

It is only the present single status project within the council that is looking at all these added extras the council gets and most i believe wil be abolished by the end of it...

 

as for the £1000 and extra days holiday.. this is becuase the council is changeing the contracts on which every employee within the council was apointed their jobs. This is why so many ( should be everyoen IMO ) is agaisnt this payment.. ( let me add i have alway thought the working 34 hours but getting paid 37 was stupid, but i happily accept it every month )

 

Over an average fo say 15 years and an average wage of 20k that is roughly £35k that person will loose out on by accepting this payment.. over the rest of their working life. IMO £1k and 1 days holdiay doesnt amount to that..

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Someone told me ( so, unverified ) that the SIC annual wage bill was around £40 million.

I wonder how much of the proposed 'across the board' cuts of 5% could be achieved by just paying employees for the time (including overtime) they work? This is a system that seems to work surprisingly well in the private sector.

 

It is also time, in my opinion, to remove the 'Island Allowance'

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Colin said

It is also time, in my opinion, to remove the 'Island Allowance'

 

The Islands Allowance is a nationally agreed allowance payble to council employees in the Western Isles, Orkney, Shetland and some of the Inner Hebrides. It should not be confused with the Special Construction Allowance which was phased out many years ago. the NHS and other government bodies also pay an Islands Allowance.

 

The 34 hour week was firmly in place when I started with the SIC in 1979 and I was advised that other councils on the mainland operated it.

 

Changing to a 37 hour week can have effect on peoples lives beyond just working the extra time. Current SIC hours are fixed at 9 to 1 and 2 to 5. Buses from the country fit in with this and people with children will have child-care arrangements that fit with this also.

 

I understand that it was proposed that anyone who wished to work 34 hours a week could continue to do so at 34/37th of their current salary.

 

The offer of the £1,000 has possibly been influenced by the experience of councils South where the introduction of Single Status has provoked strike action

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Colin said
It is also time, in my opinion, to remove the 'Island Allowance'

 

Changing to a 37 hour week can have effect on peoples lives beyond just working the extra time. Current SIC hours are fixed at 9 to 1 and 2 to 5. Buses from the country fit in with this and people with children will have child-care arrangements that fit with this also.

 

Working until 5pm on Friday woud gain them one hour straight away, I've never understood the justification or reasoning for the early downing of tools of a Friday with the Council, no other employer I can think of does it as standard practice. Cutting dinner breaks from an hour to 45 mins would gain another hour+.

 

Why not work 3 hours on Saturday morning for that matter? Numerous other employers operate 5 1/2 day working weeks. Certainly there would be child care implications, but I would have thought child care woud be easier to source of a Saturday morning than say before 9 or after 5 on weekdays.

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Ghostrider wrote

I would have thought child care woud be easier to source of a Saturday morning than say before 9 or after 5 on weekdays.

 

It depends who looks after the bairns! After school clubs at present only operate Monday to Friday and I guess most child minders do so as well. If your partner also works for the SIC and you have no handy family or friends you would be stuffed.

 

I did suggest to the powers that be that as the SIC is causing the problem and they fund out of school clubs and buses they should find some money to provide additional services. The ability to work flexible hours would also help.

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Wouldn't the solution be a flexitime system? Does anyone who works for the SIC know if it has been spoken about? 9-1 and 2-5 may well suit people who have been used to working that for years and live near Lerwick but (as others have pointed out) what about existing or prospective employees who have carers responsibilities/live that bit further from the town or the public who are unable to access Council services outwith those times?

 

I've worked for a number of Councils south over the last 10 years and all had flexitime/a clocking in and out system in place. As well as flexibility for staff and rewarding those who worked more than their required 35/whatever hours a week by giving them the equivalent time off (and was a good monitoring system for those who didn't) it meant that offices could be open at times which suited the public (8-6 through the week, Saturday mornings etc).

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What's happening under Single Status is that SIC employees who are currently contracted to work 34 hours per week, are now being asked to work 37 hours per week for the same money.

 

This amounts to around 140 hours per year extra they are being asked to work for the same salary. In exchange for this they have been offered 1 extra day holiday per year (that's 7 hours per year) and a one off payment of £1000 gross.

 

The other option they have is to continue to work the hours they are currently contracted to, but take a 9% pay cut.

For someone on say £20,000 per year, that works out at a £135 a month pay cut.

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all staff will be offered this as its part of single status agrements. as you may remember in aberdeen when it happend there they had a right carry on!

 

the fact that some employees get far too much for what they actualy do where others get far too less for what they do - its about balencing the tables a bit. which is great if you are a dinner lady, cleaner or other low payed job. not so good if you are middle management.

 

Each type of job working conditions had its own 'book of rules and conditions' the fact that we will all be under the same book rather than 1 2 books they will be one.

 

To get people to change they will have to offer some sort of swetner, for those making the change. At the end of the day the staff will work for every penny and get no hours for free etc. but then, if you work over the hours you will get overtime. This is where the council might fine the pay bill going up because the number of actual employees that take work home is a lot bigger then what you might think.

 

As the shetland people start to moan as the stoires start comming out we have to remember that all councils have to do this and its not some loonie brain child of some shetland official, although what they offer is!

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Ghostrider wrote

 

I did suggest to the powers that be that as the SIC is causing the problem and they fund out of school clubs and buses they should find some money to provide additional services. The ability to work flexible hours would also help.

 

they already do!

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What's happening under Single Status is that SIC employees who are currently contracted to work 34 hours per week, are now being asked to work 37 hours per week for the same money.

 

This amounts to around 140 hours per year extra they are being asked to work for the same salary. In exchange for this they have been offered 1 extra day holiday per year (that's 7 hours per year) and a one off payment of £1000 gross.

 

The other option they have is to continue to work the hours they are currently contracted to, but take a 9% pay cut.

For someone on say £20,000 per year, that works out at a £135 a month pay cut.

 

This is the kind of attitude that pi**es everybody off that works in the real world.

 

Where else but the SIC could it happen that all empoyees are paid to work 37 hours but only required to turn up for 34 of them, and then complain when they are asked to work the actual number of hours they are paid for. On top of that, they then expect a 'bonus' for agreeing to work their contracted number of hours.

 

On Frankie's own calculations, if someone had been empolyed by the SIC for 20 years they would have had 2800 hours paid leave - thats about a year and a half to normal folk.

 

Get real, and remember the poor sods who have had to finance this 3 hour holiday you have had every week !

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What's happening under Single Status is that SIC employees who are currently contracted to work 34 hours per week, are now being asked to work 37 hours per week for the same money.

 

This amounts to around 140 hours per year extra they are being asked to work for the same salary. In exchange for this they have been offered 1 extra day holiday per year (that's 7 hours per year) and a one off payment of £1000 gross.

 

The other option they have is to continue to work the hours they are currently contracted to, but take a 9% pay cut.

For someone on say £20,000 per year, that works out at a £135 a month pay cut.

 

 

 

 

 

This is the kind of attitude that pi**es everybody off that works in the real world.

 

Where else but the SIC could it happen that all empoyees are paid to work 37 hours but only required to turn up for 34 of them, and then complain when they are asked to work the actual number of hours they are paid for. On top of that, they then expect a 'bonus' for agreeing to work their contracted number of hours.

 

On Frankie's own calculations, if someone had been empolyed by the SIC for 20 years they would have had 2800 hours paid leave - thats about a year and a half to normal folk.

 

Get real, and remember the poor sods who have had to finance this 3 hour holiday you have had every week !

 

Can I smell jealousy ? :lol:

 

I don't work for SIC but good luck to them.

 

I can never understand why people bitch about what other people earn. If you are not happy with your lot, go and try to get a job where you think it's better, instead of moaning about others.

 

Also 9% less money in their pockets is 9% less money spent in local shops.

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