ASWs win an historic victory!!
The day before the Surrey-wide pay strike, ASW UNISON members met to vote on SCC's historic offer. The offer was:
* £1,000 goodwill payment to ALL ASWs on the rota at the time the dispute was lodged
* Overtime to be paid to all those ASWs, back-dated to Jan 1st 06 (where this has not already been taken back as TOIL)
* Overtime payments to be made available from Jan 1st 07 to all ASWs whose ASW duties take them past 5pm.
* A joint working party to be established in January (chaired initially by Dave Sargeant) to look at all aspects of the service, including modernisation, recruitment and retention.
The ASWs only acheived this by sticking together, working through UNISON, and by being prepared to take action. Other groups of workers should now look at this result and ask themselves how they can improve their own terms and conditions through UNISON membership and activity.
Congratulations to the ASWs!
Paul Couchman