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Text of letter from Branch Secretary to the Branch Executive and all Stewards:

"As you all know we are trying very hard to improve our communications and this is just a short note to ensure that you are all kept in touch with current developments on the Scottish Water "Comp & Bend" front.

A new Scottish Water Council sub group (the Implementation Group) has now been formed to look at the overall "SW Term and Conditions" package being proposed, prior to it being offered to the workforce for consideration.

The new "Comp & Bend Implementation Sub Group" comprises the four Trades Unions full time officers, 2 or 3 senior lay officers from these unions and four SW managers.

The Representatives on this group are: Ken Seaward (full time regional officer), Steve Scott (Branch Chair) and Jim Anderson (Branch Secretary).

This group held its first meeting on 11^th August and which we received a presentation from Andrew Walker (Human Resources General Manager) on where we are at the moment with the " Comp & Ben", along with information based on the feedback from the recently completed "Current Thinking " exercise.

The Unison team are acutely aware of the importance in making sure that you are all kept as speedily informed as practicable as to developments in this most important area. To this end we have agree that we will be passing on to you all as much information as we are in a position to provide from this sub – group.

In order to speed up communications on this important issue we have arranged for information from the sub – group meeting be passed directly to all Branch Stewards by Ken Seaward.

(This will ensure that all information can be sent directly to every Branch Steward), and given this new mechanism, you should all be receiving the details of the Andrew Walker presentation within the next couple of days at the latest.

We would ask that you treat this information as "Commercial and in Confidence", however we do expect to receive feedback from you all in the future as things progress.

Can I just close therefore, by once again confirming to you, that we as Unison, will not be accepting any of the alterations / amendments being proposed under the "Comp & Ben" exercise, that affect our members existing "Terms and Conditions" without having first directly involved all of the membership in that decision making process."

Recent correspondence to Reservoir bogs suggests many members are’t sure where Unison stands. Well – although voluntary redundancies have been accepted and we’ve been active in trying to get the best deal we can on this - compulsory redundancy has not been a topic we’ve raised or have agreed to.

Although agreeing a voluntary system Unison is still campaigning to keep as many jobs as possible in this public water authority - especially as the job losses announced in April were far higher than earlier announcments.

Members who’ve applied for redundancy and been turned down and feel they haven’t had fair treatment through the process will get Unison support - in the same way any paid up member who is aggrieved about fair treatment on any topic.

"Firstly the actual pay award was a flat rate payment of £375 with a guaranteed 2% if and when the new terms and conditions were accepted by the workforce. As we do not know what the terms and conditions package is Unison have not accepted any of these proposals

In respect of compulsory redundancies Unison have not agreed or accepted this. However, we have been informed by the management that whilst they will make every effort to ensure that all redundancies are voluntary the possibility of compulsory redundancies cannot be discounted should this become necessary.

The comments made in respect of the poor performance of Unison branch Stewards is in my opinion very far from the truth. Unison is in the forefront of trying to ensure that our member’s terms and conditions are not significantly eroded. However this work is being done against a background of the Business plan showing a reduction of some £57 million in staff costs.

Whilst I can understand our members frustration with the continual change that characterises Scottish Water the Branch Executive and all our stewards are continually striving to look after our members and will continue to do so."

The Bill will establish a regulatory framework for public water and sewerage services that safeguards the Executive's public health, environment protection and social policy objectives as competition in the water industry develops.

The Bill will:
 

Establish that Scottish Water alone is able to add drinking water to, and draw wastewater from, public water and sewerage networks (i.e. prohibits common carriage)

Prohibit anyone other than Scottish Water from providing domestic customers with retail water and sewerage services

Establish a licensing regime to control those providing retail water and sewerage services to non domestic customers
The Competition Act 1998 opens up the prospect of competition on the public water and sewerage networks that Scottish Water owns and operates.

This could take two forms:

1. Common carriage - where a third party provides water and sewerage services to customers on the public networks by adding drinking water to Scottish Water's mains, or drawing wastewater from Scottish Water's sewers.

2. Retail - where responsibility for delivering water and sewerage rests with Scottish Water, but where services such as meter reading, customer billing and handling customer complaints are provided by third parties.
 

Ministers' social policy objectives will be safeguarded by the prohibition on anyone other than Scottish Water retailing water and sewerage services to households served on the public networks. This means that domestic water charges could continue to reflect customers' broad ability to pay by retaining the link between domestic charges and the banding and discount arrangements of the Council tax system.
 

Following consultation with members The Branch Executive at their meeting on 30^th June decided to accept the current £375 wage deal.

It was acknowledged that this is a poor deal for a large number of our members but the circumstances where all the other unions accepted it and management paid out didn’t allow much option to do otherwise.

So what happened with the pay negotiations? - the full story

Way back last December we asked you what you thought was a decent pay award – at least the public sector "going rate" cost of living rise with no strings attached was the prevailing view.

It was Unison who took the initiative to the other unions to try for a pay award on these lines

It was clear from the start that our employer preferred to tie any pay claim to terms and conditions.

The final offer from our employer was the £375 deal. – i.e. the best that could be obtained by negotiation.

At that time it was apparent that there was not much to be gained in further discussion at the Scottish Council.

The other three trade unions – GMB, T&G and Amicus had told Scottish Water their members wanted to accept the pay deal – and told our employer they wanted a pay out in June!

This left Unison as the only union not willing to accept it - and certainly without consulting its members for their views.

In the meantime Scottish Water took the decision to pay this out to all their employees, including Unison members even though Unison hadn’t completed the consultation process with members.

The Branch Executive had considered the position at an emergency meeting in early June. – reluctantly the Branch Executive recommended acceptance of the offer – in view of circumstances noted above - although members had to be consulted to see if they agreed.

In order to reach as many members as possible in a reasonable timescale we held a number of workplace meetings thoughout Scotland, including Dunfermline (Castle House), Glasgow (Balmore Road office, Laboratory, Thompson Pavilion) , Aberdeen, Inverness (Reay House), Western Isles and Dundee.

Local Stewards also discussed the deal with their constituents.

The views from work place meetings varied, but there was an overall majority for (reluctant) acceptance in view of the current circumstances.

A strong letter of complaint has been sent to The Human Resources Manager Andrew Walker over the way the pay negotiations were conducted.

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What now? - Is Partnership Working?

The Branch is now considering the best strategy to deal with the situation we’re in - especially the next round in the pay / terms and conditions deal from next January.

(Note the the 2% minimum will be tied to acceptance of a new "Compensation and Benefits" package).

Also under is consideration is whether partnership is working in our interests and whether we should stick with it to try to improve the situation – it’s clearly not close to an equal partnership at the moment.

e.g. Are agreed consultation procedures being followed at present ? - Unison are all too frequently having to remind management that we are in a partnership with them and that sticking to the rules is the only way that we’ll believe that our employer genuinely wants an honest partnership to work

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Unison’s Campaign

It’s not just Scottish Water that needs to be convinced

Unison are campaigning to raise awareness with

• Ministers and civil servants who directly influence decisions
• MSP’s, T&E Committee and political parties
• General public to build pressure on the above

On Thursday 19 June 2003 the Scottish Tories are initiating a debate in the Scottish Parliament on the Scottish water industry calling for the mutualisation of Scottish Water.

The coalition agreement Partnership for a Better Scotland commits the Scottish Executive to "retain Scottish Water in public ownership and will support it with the resources necessary to invest in our public water and sewerage services so that they meet health standards". UNISON supports this commitment that reflects the Scottish peoples rejection of profit taking from an essential public service.

Mutualisation for the capital intensive Scottish water and sewage industry is simply a smokescreen for privatisation. The mutual body would in effect be owned by the financial institutions that provided (the more expensive) capital funds. To minimise financial risk they would insist that all services be provided by private contractors as happens in Welsh Water, the model for the Tory proposal. Therefore the so-called mutual option is in reality a token representation for customers on a board overseeing a wholly privatised Scottish Water. In addition to the disruption a second reorganisation would cause, bills would rise to pay for the profits of the English water companies who would provide the services and the more expensive private sector borrowing.

The usual right wing commentators riding on the publicity generated by rising bills have made the calls for water privatisation. Many of the claims are absurd, based on inaccurate data laced with their own ideological views. Scottish Water does have a number of problems including:

• Unrealistic efficiency targets both in the scale of the cuts they impose and the speed in which they are to be achieved. Resulting in massive job losses which will undermine safety and customer service. Scottish Water is being given four years to make structural changes that took twelve years in England.
• Bills that are rising faster than necessary due to the structure of water charges proposed by the Water Industry Commissioner (WIC) including:
• Harmonisation introduced in one year instead of phasing the changes over a number of years.
• Increasing the fixed charge element again without sufficient phasing.
• The surface water drainage water charge.
• Bills that will continue to rise after 2006 because the WIC insists on funding investment from customer charges. Sensible organisations spread long term investment costs.
• Unfair (and often inaccurate) comparisons with England. Scotland has an entirely different water and sewage infrastructure. In particular, large numbers of small water treatment plant, more sewers closer to properties and of course a massive coastline. The English industry has also benefited from £50bn of investment over the past 13 years compared with £1bn in Scotland. Bills in England throughout the 90’s were much higher in England to finance this investment even though they had the benefit of debt write off at privatisation.

Put simply, Scotland’s crumbling water and sewage infrastructure needs massive investment and that is expensive. Costs that either have to be met by charges or by the general taxpayer at the expense of other public services. There are serious problems with the current regulatory regime that need to be tackled. However, there are no easy fixes and mutualisation/privatisation is not the solution.

web: www.unison-scotland.org.uk

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