Staff at a social care community interest company in Greater Manchester went on strike for five days last week in their fifth bout of industrial action against changes to pay and conditions.
Around 100 staff at Future Directions CIC in Rochdale refused to work for the whole of last week in protest at new terms and conditions imposed by the organisation after it won a new supported living services contract with Rochdale Council.
Unison the union has claimed that Future Directions is trying to grow its business at the expense of its workers, and that many employees are losing more than £500 a month as a result of the changes. Four in five of the affected staff are women and most work part-time.
Union members have already gone on strike on four previous occasions in protest at the changes. The union claims that it is “consistently called for meaningful negotiations with Future Directions, but there has been no positive movement to date”.
It has also requested further financial disclosure to allow full analysis of the rationale for the cuts, but this has not been provided.
However, Future Directions insisted that its senior staff have been meeting Unison representatives regularly and is disappointed that the union has been calling for strike action while negotiations are ongoing.
Managing director Paula Braynian said the fact is that there is no more money available to increase pay and conditions, and the company believes that the financial system already in place is “a pretty good one”.
Local authorities are themselves under pressure and will only pay a certain price for contracts, she said. “It’s the new reality, there is only so much money available to us.”
She said the CIC had worked hard to preserve employees’ NHS pensions, which are “quite substantial” and the changes to terms and conditions had been flagged up to staff a long time ago.
The company was trying to avoid making anybody compulsorily redundant but that meant there had to be trade-offs in pay and conditions.
She added: “The bottom line is that we are supporting very vulnerable people, people with challenging needs, and their care is very dependent on regular individuals who know their background. This strike action has caused massive disruption for these service users.”
In response to the claim that the CIC was expanding at the expense of workers, Braynian said: “We have an obligation to try to win more contracts, but it’s not true to say we are doing it at the expense of staff. Our staff get lots of benefits – their pensions, a paid training package.
“It’s a nice, friendly place to work, too – it’s not a family business but it has that kind of culture.”
