Oct 17 - Unite The Union Urges MOD To "Come Clean" On Redundancies
Unite the Union issued a statement this morning saying it feels obliged to respond to some of the statements made by the Commander British Forces Mike Walliker in the media and calls on the MoD to reconsider the final number of jobs to be lost under the new Operating Model.
The statement read: "Unite the Union must insist that the Ministry of Defence comes clean, whether or not there are going to be compulsory redundancies, should the level of interest for the voluntary redundancy not be there. This is obviously our prerogative, since phrases and words used by the Commander British Forces indicate that compulsory redundancies “could” happen. Words such as, we quote, “I do not envisage any compulsory redundancies…….. There should be no requirement for compulsory redundancies…….. and as he told the Panorama, he hoped, like last time, there were voluntary redundancies, there would be no need to force people out of their jobs.
"In response to questions asked by the media the Commander British Forces replied that no further plans for further reductions were in place. Yet he contradicts himself in another interview by stating that any future changes are subject to the plans of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, therefore, he cannot reaffirm the locally entered civilian workforce that no further reductions would take place after the implementation of the Operating Model.
"We further question the Ministry of Defence overly optimistic position, that they will achieve the high numbers of voluntary redundancy applications, when the fact is, that to date the Ministry of Defence has not yet carried out an expression of interest exercise for such a scheme, contrary to what the Commander British Forces said in his interview with GBC when asked about Compulsory Redundancies.
"The Commander British Forces owes it to all his loyal employees to speak clearly and come clean!
"The Ministry of Defence has described a Voluntary Redundancy Scheme as "attractive" which offers a month per year of service as compensation, therefore, meaning that a Locally Entered Civilian who has been working for four years would only get four months’ salary. It might be attractive to the minority, but without a doubt it would not be attractive to all those Locally Entered Civilians’ post holders, targeted by this new Operating Model.
"We need to be highly critical of the Ministry of Defence actions, when in one hand they are announcing a reduction of the workforce and on the other hand advertise vacancies in the Gibraltar Chronicle for General Hands and for Gibraltar Defence Police Officers.
"Surely, we could work together to mitigate the number of individuals impacted by their new operating model by giving them preference to the already advertised vacancies.
"Finally, we must criticise the Commander British Forces on his statement where he insinuates that in Gibraltar we should count ourselves lucky for only facing a 15% reduction, compared to the UK where a 45% reduction of the civilian workforce is taking place.
"Mr Commander British Forces, have you considered the socio-economic impact this reduction will have on 30,000 Gibraltarians?"
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