Channel 4 Dispatches investigation probes Wirral

Wirral Council is among local authorities which will feature in a Channel 4 Dispatches investigation to be broadcast next week.

Titled How Councils Waste Your Money the programme says it "reveals the millions spent on gagging council workers so they don't spill the beans."

Wirral whistleblowers who alleged wrong-doing in the way the authority handled its multi-million pound outsourced highways maintenance contract have been interviewed by the show’s reporters.

Source

I'd love to see that programme, I'll bet there's some folk at the council who are panicked about it coming out!

Wirral Leaks is always worth a look for the latest council shenanigans CLICKY

Disclaimer: no connection with, etc. etc. etc.

There will be no panic they are that thick skinned and sure of themselves, lets hope the whole rotten lot collapse like a house of cards and they get their marching orders.

Added to which Biffa staff are apparently going on strike, as are teachers. A summer of discontent?

what day are the teachers go to strike?

teachers strike day is 27th June. Its not more money or longer holidays trying to protect what they have and not be made to work till 68 before getting a reduced pension and paying more for it.
Reasons they are striking :

We should have no illusions - Michael Gove wants to reduce teachers’ pay
He is trying to get support from the profession and the public by claiming that ‘good teachers’ will be paid more. However, it is clear that there will be no additional money and that the real aim is to cut teachers’ pay. There is also no doubt that, if he succeeds in breaking up the national pay structure for school teachers, similar attacks on teachers in sixth form colleges will follow.

Remember - teachers will have lost over 15% of the value of their take home pay during the coalition Government’s term of office due to the pay freeze, pay cap and pension contribution increases.

Pensions under attack
Teachers cannot work until 68 or longer for much reduced returns.

Conditions under threat
In April Michael Gove asked the School Teachers’ Review body to review teachers’ working conditions in order to “give schools the flexibilities they need”. The next day he told us what this would mean - longer schools days and shorter school holidays.

After the years of fiascos of the Wirral Highways Contract, it is about to be brought back in-house again.

I guess this means that we will have to pay for the work that hasn't been done twice-over to catch up with the backlog.

We are getting ready to trade outside of the EU, low wage economy, sweatshop working conditions, longer hours, no job protection, Capitalism at its finest.

We are the worst in Europe already (despite the claims of the EU providing us workers rights, human rights etc). We have longer working hours and least pay rises compared to GDP.

We (the people) need to take control of our country, having one Government instead of two will make it far easier to point the finger and get things sorted out.

Having a Tory Government that blatantly robs from the poor and gives to the rich has got to come to an end. Not only are they robbing from the poor they are also borrowing more than any Labour Government has.

I am sure the Tories are well under way with plans to remove all the Eu directives and regulations that protect workers rights, as I said to granny I would rather take my chances with the sharks in the EU than the Tory sharks in the UK.

But the majority of UK workers rights were in place BEFORE we joined the EU, the only effective significant change has been maternity. EU working time directives have been largely ineffective.

While we are in the EU you have at least two sharks, I prefer to cope with one.

Lots more than that DD, Tupe springs to mind, employment contracts, parental leave, time off for family emergencies, why do you think the working time directive was ineffective? it at least gave some protection to workers from working excessive hours and limiting night working hours to lose any of it is a step back in time, but of course that's what its all about.

Employment contracts were UK (1963)

TUPE is ineffective - there are so many loopholes, while many transfers are done under TUPE where a company doesn't want to follow it, it is only a minor case of forcing people to re-apply fro their jobs by making small changes to the job specification or company structure.

The working time regulations are averaged over 17 weeks and don't stop someone being worked say 100 hours in one week or even 4 weeks of 70 hours.

The working time regulations don't apply where 24 hour staffing is required.

The working time regulations have an opt-out, do employees really feel they can refuse to sign the opt-out if their employer asks them to sign it?

etc

Parental leave (which is unpaid) is ineffective. It was usually achievable without the EU regulations, if your child was sick, your doctor would usually sign you off sick as well if necessary. Employer can refuse Parental Leave if it would have a significant impact on his business (as you would hope most jobs would).

Time off for family emergencies:- roughly the same as Parental Leave, the regulations are very woolly.

Since the Government effectively made employment tribunals inaccessible (70% fall), any regulations are pretty mute anyway as the individual employee will struggle to get them enforced without significant financial risk. I think some of that damage is being reversed? Either way, the EU obviously left another huge loophole in not specifying enforcement. Tribunals generally don't have resolution timescales so cases can be drawn out over years.

A lot of regulation is introduced to pacify people but in reality is ineffective.

Working Rights practices that have come in since we have been in the EU are things like ...

You can be sacked for no reason within your first 2 years, it used to be 1 year.

You can be dismissed for a poor sickness record never mind how genuine.

Your contract can be ripped up at any time.

Your pension scheme can be ripped up and changed at any time.

Prior to the EU directives those were exceptionally uncommon events, the EU hasn't protected the basics.

Well as regards Tupe, I have experienced a TUPE transfer, it worked very well, transferred over final salary scheme applied because it was part of my contract,service years were also transferred, attempts were made to change terms and conditions which were successfully challenged, so all in all it was a success.

It works well when the employer is willing to transfer on those terms (albeit with a bit of negotiation sometimes), if the employer doesn't want to play they either use a loophole or rely on the employee not risking the time, cost and effort of an employment tribunal.

The loopholes are there for the taking, there are numerous employees having to apply for their own job these days, if you are given the choice between signing up to new terms or having to apply for your own job its high risk to do the former unless you are financially very secure.

You only have to look at the Wirral binmen to realize how little weight TUPE holds, every time the waste contract change, the binmen got a new contract which is either less money or different hours.

Unless the new role is 100% identical to the old role in terms of individual and department, then an efficiency or restructuring has taken place and the loophole is open.