Operators dealing with 999 calls will be paid less than the night shift at a supermarket if a plan to slash their allowances goes ahead, a Tayside union official has claimed.
Tayside Police branch secretary for Unison, George McIrvine, claimed a move by the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA) to cut the take-home pay of control office staff will leave them around £5000 a year worse off. That, he said, would make the job less attractive, and could lead to officers having to answer phones rather than being out pounding the streets.
“Those in the control office get shift allowances, which probably puts them on £24,000-£25,000 per year, but what they are wanting to do is take the shift allowances away, which will mean a £5000 drop,” said Mr McIrvine. “It’s a lot of money and is devaluing the job you would get more money working night shift at Asda.
“You don’t want cops ending up in there off the streets, earning £35,000 in an office.”
The deal applies to all 6500 staff civilian staff across Scotland, including custody officers and station assistants, who account for nearly 30% of all employees in Scottish forces. Around a third are shift workers whose pay includes shift allowances to make up for the anti-social hours they work.
COSLA said the way things are just now is unaffordable as they try to cut £10 million, but Mr McIrvine claimed the union had proposed a strategy to save the same amount but had seen it rejected.
“We gave them a counter proposal there would be no overtime and we would be willing to cut an hour off everybody’s working week across Scotland,” he said. “The feedback from membership was they would do something like that our proposal would save £10 million, but they said it was unworkable.”
In a letter to Unison, Tom Young of COSLA said, “If we do not modernise and rationalise shift allowances, it is likely future cost pressures will have a detrimental impact on the workforce, resulting in job losses.”
Photo by Flickr user l.bailey_beverley.