I work for the Council and they are treating me like dirt

[Daineseturbo]

Hello,

Short version:

Work directly for Council within the social services team, on a “zero hours” contract. Following the December 2020 lockdown, all scheduled work I had committed to in the diary was cancelled with immediate effect.

The government and Local Government Association have both been very clear that “organisations that are publicly funded are expected to continue to pay staff as normal” and this “includes part time and zero hours staff”. For the sake of what “normal pay” is, the LGA have published guidance that it’s an average of the previous 12 weeks.

The Council have just said “tough - no pay”. I raised a formal grievance and submitted a dossier of all the published government documentation - and it’s just come back with a single page response with no reasoning, just an “it’s still our decision not to provide pay”. The irony is that in 2020 the Council published a policy to actually pay zero hours staff in this very condition - and this time round it just said it’s a “director level decision”.

Help. I don’t know where to turn - they are being complete fuckers.

If you are not the only one in the position, shop them to the newspapers or take it up with your MP.

Have taken a huge financial hit, I thought working for a Council would offer some protection - turns out far less protection than pretty much anywhere else.

Adult learning teachers (paid by council) are on zero hours contracts and this happened to me too.

Contact your MP. Tweet your council, tagging everyone you can think of from the government department who issued the guidance.

I think the problem is the zero hours contract tbh...

I am looking elsewhere but v confused workwise at ths moment.

Have a look at all the parliamentary briefing papers about CJRS - and even a published HM Treasury clarification. If you work for a publicly funded organisation - expect to be paid as normal (specifically includes zero hours staff). I’ve read it all extensively - looks nailed on to me. Plus the unions have published examples where they’ve got Councils to agree to pay zero hours staff.

Are you in a union?

No union for me, sadly

But what is normal when you're zero hours? My "normal" since covid has been seriously reduced so since sept Ive had hardly any work... as its zero hours they dont have to contract me to do sessions.

If you work in social services there are several you could join, UNISON for example. They can't help with pre-existing issues but always worth joining for things like this

I work for the council and they do take concerns from MP / councillors seriously, so I would raise this with MP as soon as possible.

Will give it a try. Hey - Savings - accordingly to the LGA “normal pay” for COVID calculations is an average of the 12 week period prior to the work being adversely affected. It’s published on the LGA website too. If you PM me I can share loads of links.

Oh wow that's interesting. Def not being done here. Courses already booked for honoured for the summer term, but I didn't get booked onto courses post then due to covid....

Its not been adhered to in our borough afaik.

This is disgusting.
Tweet the hell out of this. Contact your MP & local Councillors. This is definitely not what my LA are doing, they’re paying all supply staff on their 12 week average, and some external agency staff on this basis.

Look for a better employer.

As you are local government I would email the Perm Sec and Ministers for MHCLG www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ministry-of-housing-communities-and-local-government (scroll down the page for contact details).

The stuff from central gov is Guidance and usually not legally enforcable on the bodies in scope unless it says "must". Basically any Guidance that uses terminology like "should" or "expected to" cannot be legally enforced and penalties from central gov would be on shaky grounds. LAs can deviate from non-binding Guidance if they have good reason and many LAs are in dire financial straights so could argue good reason/value for money quite easily.

Its crap for you but you will get nowhere by complaining (especially with no union backing) and your efforts would be better spent looking for new work.

@FijiCavanaugh you are correct.

However, even when ‘should, is used there are occasions when a high degree of compliance is expected.

Sending an email to perm Sec and Ministers costs nothing but time. It is worth it as this is the type of case that would fail the Daily Mail test I.e. making the lowest paid suffer due to Covid-19.

Email sent to the Perm Sec Jeremy pocklington!

Our local authority have paid. But it is definitely guidance and not law - if they chose not to pay there is no legal remedy. That said, we pay - and that accounts for a big part of the £millions deficit that has resulted in us terminating over 200 staff - more if you include all the zero hours contracts that have been terminated and won't ever come back.