Archive for December, 2014
Finance Sector E-Bulletin for December
Thursday, December 18th, 2014
The Finance and Legal E-Bulletin for December is now available by clicking the link below.
It gives you news of what is happening in other Companies within the Finance Sector.
Within Prudential as we are currently in the middle of pay talks and other consultations we had nothing concrete to report for this edition but hopefully we will have something for the next edition which is due out at the end of Q1 2015.
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New Affiliations
Friday, December 12th, 2014
The Prudential Section have a long history of supporting bodies that help the oppresed and support justice for trade unionists and working class people wherever they live. At the last Prudential National Company Committee (NCC) members agreed to affiliate to a number of new organisations. The new organisations are:-
- Justice for Columbia
- Palestine Solidarity Campaign
- Shrewsbury 24 Campaign for Justice
- Union Solidarity International
We also continued our long standing affiliations with Action for Southern Afria (ActSA) and LabourStart.
We have added links to each of these groups in the “links” box on the right of the home screen. Please have a look at the work each of these groups do.
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Unite Launch Unpaid Hours Campaign
Monday, December 1st, 2014
Today the Unite Finance Sector launched its campaign on Unpaid Hours in the Sector. The campaign launch follows up on a survey of Finance Sector workers earlier this year.
Some of the highlights of this survey were:-
• 60% of respondents said they had to work longer hours as a result of headcount reduction
• 76% of respondents said they were told by their managers that they had to work longer than their contracted hours
• 77% of respondents said that the additional hours they worked over their contracted hours were not paid
From the results independent Survey company Survation estimated that:-
• 40% of employees have lost over £2,000 from their annual pay due to not being paid for these additional hours worked
• 20% of employees have lost over £5,000
• For every 100 people currently employed in the Finance Sector their lost earnings are equal to the work of a further 18 people.
As part of the campaign Unite have today launched an unpaid hours calculator. We would encourage anyone who works any unpaid hours (if you get overtime, flex time, time off in lieu for any additional hours work they are categorised as paid hours) to go to the calculator and enter your information.
The calculator will tell you how much pay you are losing by not being paid for these additional hours.
The link to the calculator is below:-
The Prudential Section also conducted its own survey and the key findings are as follows:-
- 95% of respondents knew what their contracted hours were
- 43% don’t monitor and record their actual hours each week
- 54% say their additional hours are unpaid
- 29% get paid overtime for additional hours
- 34% take additional hours as Time off in Lieu or Flex
- 41% say they are pressured to do additional hours
We also found that in certains pockets of the organisation managers have told employees that they work “professional hours” and therefore they have to put in as many hours as necessary to get the job done. Sadly this is becomming more and more common place.
Steve O’Donnell, Senior rep, stated “The standard Prudential full time contracted hours in our bargaining units is 35 hours a week. There are a couple of exceptions (Chauffeurs and Computer Operators) but when and why has it become acceptable for people to work longer than their contracted hours unpaid. We accept at times people will need to work longer hours but these hours need to be agreed and rewarded. There can be no excuse for employees not to be paid for the hours they work. The idea that because you are deemed to be a ‘professional’ you may have to work for free is a nonsense and a disgrace. We will be discussing this issue with the business as part of the wider campaign.”
If you want any more information on the Unite Campaign please go to the Unite website by clicking here – http://www.unitetheunion.org/how-we-help/list-of-sectors/finance-and-legal/unpaid-hours-are-not-acceptable/
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