Staff at health and social care charity, Alternative Futures Group (AFG), have called a strike over a decision to cut overnight staff pay, but charity bosses have threatened a legal challenge over how the ballot was carried out.
Some 660 health support workers plan to strike after months of talks between employees and the charity about paying overnight healthcare staff minimum wage failed to result in an agreement.
The employees are represented by the trade union UNISON. In a ballot of 660 of their members on Monday, 87 per cent voted in favour of the strike, with a 51.5 per cent turnout to the vote.
UNISON has said that cutting staff pay could result in losses of £2,000 a year to individual staff’s incomes. However AFG have said that due to insufficient funding from councils that commission their services, they will not be able to maintain minimum wages.
Errors in the balloting process
AFG’s lawyers are threatening to start “injunctive proceedings” if the union does not call off the strikes.
In a letter sent to UNISON on Wednesday, AFG said that there were errors in the balloting process that were “so fundamental we consider that the ballot cannot stand and/or have the immunity afforded to a properly effected and constituted ballot.”
In the letter, AFG’s lawyers accused the union of not giving correct information to its members about the financial position of the charity, in advance of the vote and called the conduct of the ballot “wholly deficient” and “unlawful”.
It also accused the union of other breaches in practice including allowing non overnight workers to participate in the vote.
Charity's financial position
The dispute started in November, when the charity announced the pay cut, following a Court of Appeal hearing in July involving UNISON and Mencap, which ruled that overnight workers could be paid less than minimum wage. The court ruled that residential care workers are only entitled to the National Minimum Wage when they are awake and working, not sleeping and available for work.
UNISON made a petition with 13,000 signatures to protest against these changes.
Representatives of the workforce and AFG management held meetings with Acas, a workplace relations advisory service to resolve the dispute over the last two days. However, the two parties reached a stalemate after the union refused to agree that the responsibility to foot the bill lay with councils.
In an email Ian Pritchard, acting chief executive of AFG, said that UNISON was not acknowledging the financial position that AFG is in. He said that if UNISON does not agree to make a joint statement with AFG about the situation then “we believe that the ACAS process is exhausted”.
'Charity should cut central bureaucracy'
But Tim Ellis, UNISON North West regional organiser said that councils pay AFG enough for it to pay its staff minimum wage, and said that council spending was “only on bit of the equation”. He said that to resolve its financial difficulties, the charity should cut its spending in other areas, citing “central bureaucracy” costs and spending on “non-core activities” as areas in which AFG had high expenditure.
He added that the strikes would increase pressure on AFG to resolve the dispute.
A spokesperson from AFG said that they were disappointed that the workers were going on strike, citing “the disruption it could cause to our vulnerable service users.”
They said: “We fully understand the financial impact a reduction in payment for sleep-is causes for support workers on the lowest pay.” However they said the financial impact of paying staff more would be “suicide” for the charity.
Councils say the pay enough
AFG’s services are commissioned by councils including: Liverpool, Mosley, Wirral, St Helen’s Council, Knowlsley and Rochdale.
The councils say that they are paying AFG enough to support their staff. Councillor Donnelly from Knowsley Council said they had increased rates to AFG by 7 per cent from April 2018, in an email sent to UNISON in November 2018.
He said: “It is the council’s view that the rates that are currently paid for care and support in relation to Supported Living have provision enough to fund at a minimum the National Living Wage.”
“I can confirm that any decision by providers to reduce the hourly rates paid to staff will be challenged by the council,” he added.
Andy Burnham, Mayor of Manchester and Steve Rotheram, Liverpool City Region Mayor also sent letters to AFG urging them to negotiate.
The date of the strike has not yet been announced. AFG said they will be negotiating with commissioners to fund national minimum wages from April.
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