Unions call on police chiefs to arrest employment rights slide - UnionNews

UNISON, Unite and GMB are calling on newly-elected police and crime commissioners and chief constables to sign up to a new ‘Police Staff Employment Charter’. In signing up to the charter, police and crime commissioners and chief constables would agree to prevent a two-tier workforce, by ensuring the same terms and conditions for staff, regardless of where they are employed.
http://union-news.co.uk/2012/11/unions-call-on-police-chiefs-to-arrest-employment-rights-slide/?doing_wp_cron=1353660992.8601770401000976562500

Scrapping of private patient limit will create a two tier NHS

Government moves to lift the cap on the funds that NHS Foundation Trusts can raise from private work, in most cases less than 5%, to a maximum of 49%, comes as no surprise to UNISON which has waged a long campaign to defend the NHS in England from creeping privatisation sought by Foundation Trust lobby groups and successive Governments: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-16337904

Academies two tier workforce - salary pay outs and wages cuts

The Guardian reports today that Charities that run chains of academy schools are using public funds to pay senior staff six-figure salaries, with some on £240,000 or more. http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/nov/14/academies-pay-200k-salaries?CMP=twt_gu

What kind of victory is this?

It came as no surprise that Eric Pickles announced, or rather slipped out on the DCLG website during the hullabaloo on budget day, the end of the Code of Practice on Workforce Matters.

Fair employment is 'bonkers' - Pickles

ConDem Communities Minister and Thatcherite throwback Eric Pickles MP has announced to the CBI his intention to scrap local government’s ‘two-tier code’, which protects the terms and conditions workers transferred to firms or not-for-profit organisations, operating outsourced contracts: http://www.localgov.co.uk/index.cfm?method=news.detail&id=96949

Osborne Looks To Make PFI Savings - Will Workers Pay?‏

Con Dem Cancellor George Osborne is hoping to shave hundreds of millions of pounds off the cost of thousands of controversial private finance initiative deals in an attempt to cut Government spending still further.

Scrapping of Two-Tier Code a green light for exploitation‏

The FT reports that Cabinet Office Minister is scrapping the two-tier code with ‘immediate effect’. Under the code new recruits on outsourced contracts have been offered terms and conditions no less favourable than staff transferred to a new employer under TUPE. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d44afe86-061e-11e0-976b-00144feabdc0.html#axzz17yv1eQJb

Rights of workers on outsourced contracts under attack‏

‘Lack of protection for pensions, pay and conditions when outsourcing takes place is a critical issue for thousands and thousands of UNISON members and public servants everywhere’ says Heather Wakefield, UNISON national secretary for local government, writing on the public finance website. The article outlines the imminent threat to the 2003 Two Tier Code of Practice, which gives new recruits on Council outsourced contracts ‘fair and reasonable terms and conditions which are overall no less favourable than those of transferred employees’. http://opinion.publicfinance.co.uk/2010/11/beginning-of-the-end-for-two-tier-protection-by-heather-wakefield/

Two tier workforce agreement under threat‏

One of the few concrete achievements of the so called Warwick Agreement is under threat from the Con Dem Government. The FT reports today that the government is “minded to scrap an informal code guaranteeing public sector benefits for thousands of outsourced private sector jobs”. The agreement – which ensures that new recruits on outsourced contracts have terms no less favourable than transferred staff with TUPE protection - will be reviewed by the tripartite Public Services Forum. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5a249f7c-99b8-11df-a852-00144feab49a.html