SX to axe 3000 jobs plus terms & conditions shocker!
9 Jun 2011
The 3000 jobs include all front-line staff. The breakdown is as follows: 304 nurses out of 5,586 nursing and medical staff (5.4%) - 1275 carers out of 25,126 care staff (5%) - 440 domestic and laundry and 238 maintenance out of 5552 housekeeping, domestic and maintenance (12.2%) - 690 catering out of 3509 catering staff (19.7%).
Whilst this is shocking enough, what has not been mentioned is that Southern Cross are intent on dramatically changing the terms and conditions of staff ‘fortunate’ to remain in a job. These plans are equally as shocking! The proposal is to force all remaining staff onto a new SX contract. To be clear, this doesn’t mean that anyone who is already on a Southern Cross contract is ‘safe’. Their plans are to move EVERYONE onto a new contract. You will also not be surprised to know that these include drastically reduced terms and conditions.
Examples of intended changes:
The limited sick pay scheme currently in place will be scrapped and only statutory sick pay will be available. All contracts will have a 20% ‘flexing of hours’ term, meaning the home manager can reduce or increase staff hours by 20% at a moment’s notice. All contracts will not be home specific and staff can be asked to work at any home at any time. All full time hours will be 42 hours but will only be paid 381/2 hours. All staff contracts will be opted out of the Working Time Directive. Southern Cross want to force through such changes and they say that if this is not voluntarily accepted by staff, they will be dismissed and asked to leave the company without redundancy pay. This is unacceptable - GMB will fight to protect our members. We’re currently in talks with the company and our legal advisors and will keep our members updated.