East Ayrshire Council wants to axe union post

Jun 26 2009 by Colin Rutherford, Kilmarnock Standard

ONE of the two full-time trade union conveners representing the East Ayrshire Council workforce is likely to be axed.

The council’s cabinet has endorsed the proposal.

The convenors are elected trade union representatives who work full time on union duties, but continue to be employed by the council.

But the plan has attracted the opposition of trade unions and the council’s Labour opposition.

At present one convenor represents manual workers and the second other staff.

At last week’s meeting depute chief executive Elizabeth Morton argued that the ‘single status’ agreement reached with unions meant that there was no longer any need for two convenors.

“There is no longer a distinction between the two elements,” she said.

New Labour group leader Maureen McKay immediately made her opposition clear.

She told the meeting: “I’m sure it will come as no surprise to you that I cannot support the recommendation. I would move that the status quo continues.”

But SNP councillor Jim Todd described the move as “a natural progression” following the changes in the council’s staffing structure.

“At the joint consultative committee there are full-time union officials present,” he said. “We are of the mind that the council tax payers shouldn’t be paying for a union position. The trade unions should.”

Said Councillor Todd: “I was a senior steward at my work, but I still carried out my work. If we had a position where there was a disagreement with the company, the full-time official would come down.”

In a letter to the council UNISON regional organiser Tracey Dalling said that the fact that there was now a single set of conditions for the majority of the authority’s workers did not alter the need for two convenors.

The number of union members in the council had risen and case records showed that there was “more than sufficient workload for two convenors”, she wrote.

Said Ms Dalling: “This is no substitute for the role of convenors who undertake strategic, high-level consultation, negotiating, bargaining and representation and are a single point of contact for the employer in co-ordinating that work.”

Councillor McKay’s move to block the proposal failed to attract a seconder and her dissent was recorded.

The convenor change does not affect teachers who have separate union representation arrangements.