“Newry, Mourne and Down Council’s management team should stand by the arrangements they agreed previously with Council staff and immediately re-engage in discussions with trades union representatives,” says Nicola Grant of the Workers Party.
Her comments come ahead of a ‘work to rule’ which begins on Monday and will affect local bin collections, leisure centres and other council services.
“These matters could be resolved quickly and maturely if the Council’s management team withdraw its plans to renage on a partnership based approach to job evaluations and scraped their divisive proposals for the withdrawal of allowances for new staff. It really is that simple”, Nicola said.
“Instead, they seem determined to provoke a confrontation with the Council’s workforce which will result in distruption and inconvenience for local people”, she added
“The Council’s record on staff relations is not a good one”, said Nicola. “They are one of the last Councils to have any meaningful engagement with trade unions on the Review of Public Administration – a process which began eight years ago.
“Council workers and local people deserve better than this. The Manangement team must halt this brinksmanship approach to staff relations. It is divisive, counterproductive and damaging. It will also fail.
“Even at this late stage, Monday’s work to rule can be avoided by honouring exisiting agreements, withdrawing divisive proposals and engaging constuctively with the trade union repesenatives”, Nicola concluded
ENDS
CLANRYE NEWS 