UNISON Rotherham Local Government

Alan Swann, Assistant Chief Executive (Human Resources) has written to all employees who are appealing their Job Evaluation pay band, to the formal stage 2 appeal.  You should have recieved notification of your appeal along with a description of the process, an appeal form and two job profiles - for your allocated band and the band above.

Whether you are a manual worker or clerical, weekly or monthly paid, a male or female, you were in the first phase (2007) or second phase (2008) and you wish to be represented at your appeal you must contact the branch office and leave your details for Gordon Jelley, Job Evaluation Appeals Officer. 

I am trying to get a complete list from HR of all those appealing but have not recieved it yet. I will contact you to arrange a meeting to discuss you individual (or collective) appeal against your banding.

To proceed to Stage 2 you will need to briefly outline on the Job Evaluation appeal form your grounds for appeal under one or all four of the headings listed.  You can begin the process by identifying similar jobs in a higher band than yourself and elements of your job that have been overlooked or underplayed in each factor of your job profile.

Some of you may have already done this.

If none of this makes any sense (and it is a difficult process) I will try t o explain clearly when we meet up. 

Try to recruit non members to the union on the basis of your appeal, whether they are appealing themselves or not.

No deadline has been set for the formal appeals at Stage 2, but HR say they hope to begin the appeals in September.

There are large numbers of employees who have been badly affected by this process forced onto members without  trade union agreement. 

It will take some time to meet you all and prepare your appeal.  My number is 07792 480 275 if you need to contact me urgently, but please try to go through the branch office in the first instance.  Other branch stewards and officers are working with me on this, along with our regional officer Robin Symonds, who may actually advise and represent you depending on the circumstances. 

If any member was persuaded or pressured not to pursue an appeal after an informal appeal/meeting (Stage One) at which they were not represented by a union representative, or you simply wish to reconsider your banding, please contact the branch office urgently.

We continue to seek improvements to the appeals process as the council have sought to narrow the grounds for successful appeal and have ruled out appeals to elected members, but Unison remains hopeful that can win some members the correct banding for their job.  We will also monitor the equality impact of decisions to see if challenges to unsuccessful appeals can be pursued through employment tribunals.

The council have indicated that we can use the JE appeals process up to 31 March 2009.  We will then return to using the regrading procedure in the ususal way to resolve pay and grading anomalies.