Mar 03 - Unite “Disgusted” At GGCA’s Approach To HR Restructure
Unite the Union says it would like to make its views public on the current restructure of the Government HR Department. Over the last few months the Government have kept all Trade Unions informed on the restructure and how it was planned to be phased in. Unite says it was informed that the proposed restructure was put forward by the staff themselves with the former HR Manager being part of the review team. The new structure sees the HR function split into two distinct arms: Recruitment and Staff Management and Policy and Business Support.
The idea behind this change was to allow government to centralise all Public Service HR into one department and give much needed support to agencies, authorities and government owned companies. Part of this centralisation was to also move Industrial Relations from No 6 to HR and the incumbent of that role to temporarily head the Policy and Business Support element until a full recruitment campaign was undertaken. It is to be noted, says Unite, that HR staff themselves personally lobbied the Chief Minister for a member of Unite to lead the team and this exciting project; an individual who, Unite says, “has promoted and undertaken huge advances in the industrial relations machinery for all three unions and who’s been a key player in the restructuring of the HR central department”. Unite says it is happy to report that it strongly approves of the changes made by government and further feels that it is already seeing an improvement to the service for the end user.
Taking all of this into consideration Unite is nevertheless “disgusted” at the way the GGCA have reacted to what it terms a “progressive approach” to HR delivery.
A statement from the union says: “We cannot understand how any trade union can so blatantly discriminate against a sector of the workforce as they are doing to the GDC. If the GGCA wants to be just and fair then we invite them to put paid their behaviour and treat all employees equally and not undermine the aspirations of a whole GDC workforce. What is even more shocking is the fact that they are discriminating against some of their own members who are employed by the GDC. If any trade union acted like this anywhere in the world its members would demand an explanation of its executive committee.
“The GGCA are not only discriminating against their own members but they are also misleading and inciting them. They are only telling their members snippets of information and twisting words to ramp up support for their twisted campaign and agenda. They published a poll against ring-fenced civil servants where they again misled their members and claim that this gives them a mandate where we understand only a handful of members voted. They then boast that they have had a record attendance at an EGM which proves the support they have on this witch hunt yet fail to inform people that only around 80 or 90 people attended the meeting which equates to around 10% of its membership. This attendance has to be contextualised with the fact that Government gave people up to 2 hours to attend a meeting which lasted only 20 minutes. We are also aware that they have visited government departments to gauge the views of its members on the restructure. Ironically one department that they did not visit was the Human Resources Department who are the ones that are directly affected by these changes.
“Furthermore, we condemn the way that the GGCA committee have discriminated and treated unfairly our member for doing his job as instructed and trying to improve the service across the board. They attack our member only because he is employed by another official government body. The GBC report alludes that the GGCA executive are unhappy that the employee in question has only been employed for two years and by this insinuate that he is not competent to carry out the role. What is to be noted is that our member has over 23 years’ experience within the UK civil service in a senior role and has been carrying out a huge percentage of the work for close to three years from No 6. During this time, our member has resolved numerous claims submitted by all three local unions, including GGCA that apply to civil servants.
“Unite understand that GGCA would seek to protect posts for their Civil Service members in the interests of these, however, what Unite does not understand is that this same criteria has not been used by the GGCA in other public service posts. We believe that the GGCA committee are targeting our member and as a Trade Union we cannot accept this.
“This action is taking its toll on our member who personally feels harassed and discriminated against. Unite has to defend its members and will undertake any action necessary in the pursuit of these and in the interim has called for an extraordinary general meeting of the Executive Committee today in order to consolidate its direction in respects to this issue.”
