Dear Member

Hi Everyone! We hope you are all keeping safe and well.

We’ve just a few brief updates for you all today, including news of a notable victory at Woodchurch Road Primary School and that’s where we’ll start todays email…

Victory at Woodchurch Road Primary school!!

Wirral Unison public statement 2 December 2020

Wirral Unison has today suspended it’s strike action at Woodchurch Road.

This comes after the School has withdrawn the proposed 20% cut in hours for play workers and deferred 20% cuts in hours for Teaching Assistants until July.

Alongside this we have a clear commitment from the Council to work with the Unions in a formal way to address the issues at the school and seek actions to alleviate the need for any cuts at the school.

Whilst we are disappointed that the Teaching Assistant cuts have only been deferred, we believe that the added time, means that with the good will of all parties a resolution can be found.

We believe that this is a significant step forward, secured by the determination of Unison and our members at the school, supported by the local community, to oppose these damaging cuts. This is a victory for our members and the community and children that support the school.

We remain committed to protecting our members and whilst we are hopeful that we can work collaboratively with the school and local leaders to achieve a long term resolution, if this is not achievable and pay cuts are again proposed in July we will consult our members accordingly.

This victory, does mean that our members will not face a pay cut hanging over them over the Christmas holidays, news that will be welcomed.

Is you workplace safe?

We know that the restrictions that are placed upon different aspects of our lives do appear to be regularly changing. Additionally the extension of testing and the availability of a vaccine appear to be closer, nevertheless it is still incumbent upon employers to keep workplaces and their staff safe. Even if transmission rates are falling, we should not lose sight of that.

If you have any concerns that your workplace or your personal safety is not being appropriately protected, please do get in touch with us. This includes, if there is insufficient availability of PPE, lack of social distancing, poor ventilation or general lack of safe practices. We can offer advice and support to address these issues.

Real Living Wage

Earlier this year, we secured a commitment from the council that they would fund the Real Living Wage for Care Workers working on behalf of Wirral council. Whilst that was initially only for the current year, we fully expect that this will continue after April 2021 and we have been making representations to the council to ensure that there is no slippage on this.

Furthermore, you may be aware that the Real Living Wage has now increased to £9.50 an hour and we are pressing the council to ensure that this is implemented from 1 April at the latest. Once again, we remain confident that our pressure will be successful.

We are aware that sadly, a number of providers have declined the opportunity to take this additional funding and implement the Real Living Wage. This perhaps reflects poorly upon the priorities in those establishments, where company profit or directors renumeration is seen as more important than paying a Care Worker a decent wage. We will be seeking to work with Councillors to see what can be done to spread the application of the Real Living Wage to more Care Workers.

Black Members Live!

Online- 22 – 23 January 2021

2020 has been a year of change, challenge and uncertainty due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result of COVID-19, many conferences and meetings have had to be cancelled.  But we still want to involve you, share information on how Black members are keeping active in UNISON and how we are working for race equality in these challenging times. With this in mind, the national Black members committee is organising a series of virtual events in place of the usual Black members conference – online and live! Online sessions will include keynote panels, webinars and workshops.   
To attend Black Members Live! you must be a Black member of UNISON.   In UNISON, we use the term ‘Black’ in its broad political and inclusive sense- click here for  more information.

We want to make this event as accessible as we can, so all members can participate fully.  If you are disabled, please let us know of any adjustments you will need to allow you to take part in a virtual event.
Please email us to register your interest in attending as follows:

• Subject – UNISON Black Members Live!
• In your email – please provide:
• Your name:
• Your membership number:
• Your branch name:
• Any reasonable adjustments you need to participate:

Please send your email to conferences@unison.co.uk

You will then be registered for the event. The registration deadline is 5pm on Thursday 7 January 2021.
Once you’ve been registered, you will be sent details of the programme.  You can then sign up for the various Black Members Live! sessions individually. You can attend as many or as few as you like.
So, let’s get Live and let’s get active!

Keeping Posture Healthy at Christmas, 12 - 1pm, 7th December 2020

Back by popular demand, this 40 minute lunchtime session takes you through a variety of exercises and stretches you can do in and with our chair to maintain a healthy posture: lots of us are working from home at the moment, and may be working in a way that can be detrimental to our posture. With Christmas looming we’re more tempted to stay sedentary on the couch. Carolyn's exercises will help keep us mobile and flexible.

This session will be run by Carolyn Beiert. Carolyn is a qualified fitness instructor, working in the fitness industry for 19 years: leading aerobic and toning fitness sessions, working with GP referrals and creating fitness sessions specifically for older people.

This event is a webinar, run online. Please RSVP to the event and we will email you a link to our course paperwork. Once we have received this back from you, we will send you out a link that will allow you to access the webinar.

To make this webinar effective we have capped the number of places on the webinar. Please do not RSVP to the event unless you are committed to attending.To RSVP to this event, follow the link https://www.unisonnw.org/keeping_posture_healthy_at_christmas

That’s all for today everyone, we hope you continue to find our regular email updates of use.

As always, please do pass our updates on to colleagues and encourage them to join Unison if they haven’t already. Here’s the link to join up! JOIN UNISON

We’ll be back in touch with further updates soon. Until then….

In solidarity!

Your Wirral Unison Team
Central email: unison1@wirral.gov.uk
Telephone: 07899713498 or 07899715085