Council workers set to miss out on the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee bank holiday will now benefit after a decision which “penalised” them was branded a mistake.
The local authority agreed to give all employees Friday, June 3 off to celebrate the Queen’s 70-year reign – apart from those who are required to work – following discussions with trade unions.
But after fresh talks with the unions, Councillor Jim Bollan said West Dunbartonshire Council’s decision to only give staff a day off if they were due to work was unfair and would predominantly disadvantage home care workers.
He said 20 percent of the workforce would miss out, and that it would penalise those who were contracted to work 37 hours but condensed their hours into a four-day week.
The West Dunbartonshire Community Party councillor tabled a motion at last week’s council meeting calling for those staff to receive the day or time awarded on a pro-rata basis, which councillors unanimously agreed to.
The costs will be met from reserves.
He commented: “It’s important that all council workers are treated equally and none are penalised regarding the Jubilee holiday.
“Currently some staff members will miss out because they agreed to management requests due to Covid-19 pressures to facilitate the continuation of some services, to condense their 37-hour working week to a four-day week Monday to Thursday.
“The briefing that came out does not even mention this point which is the core of the cases, certainly of the nine constituents who contacted to me. The briefing also tells us that 1000 workers could be losing out on the holiday, around 20 percent of our workforce.
“This motion seeks to ensure all workers will benefit from a day’s holiday or an equivalent monetary payment.
“The last two-years have reinforced my long held political view about the vital importance of public sector workers and the valuable work they carry out.
“The NHS workers were only clapped for their efforts during Covid-19.
“Let’s make sure the council takes the opportunity to thank all of our workers by ensuring none of them miss out on this holiday.”
SNP leader Jonathan McColl said the original decision wouldn’t have been made if trade unions hadn’t agreed to it. He commented: “While I’m happy to support the motion I will say that what is being proposed by Jim here would have been agreed had the trade unions not previously agreed to something else.
“What we implemented as a council was as a result of the trade unions agreeing that’s what they wanted us to do.
“I’m happy to accept that they’ve now changed their minds on that but there are processes gone through and plans made.
“On a number of things this term we’ve had the trade unions come in and change their minds and it does undermine the relationship between the trade unions and management if they are going to agree something with management and then at the eleventh hour come to us and say they actually want to do something
else.”
Labour councillor David McBride said he agreed to the original decision, which he later realised was a
“mistake”.
He said: “I was one of the corporate service committee members who agreed the original decision and we did it based on the information and it seemed reasonable at the time.
“Having been lobbied by some staff I certainly very quickly came to the conclusion that we made a mistake and when you make a mistake it’s good to hold up your hands and say we did potentially disadvantage some
people.
“The last two years has been a struggle for our staff and the last thing we would want to do is take a selection of staff and give them the impression they’re any less valued than anybody
else.”
