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Senior management are attempting to implement
the most serious attack on staff pay and conditions
in Shelter’s 41 year history. If pushed through these
cuts will also fundamentally change the way in which
Shelter delivers its services. It will transform the nature
of Shelter, which was built on the back of “Cathy
Come Home” to campaign against bad housing and
homelessness, into an organisation which prioritises
chasing government contracts above all else. The vast
majority of Shelter’s dedicated staff is fundamentally
opposed to these changes.
Management are pressurising staff to accept:
* Abolition of incremental pay
* An extension of the working week which amounts to
3 working weeks per year at no extra pay
* Downgrading of posts throughout Shelter’s housing
advice and support services with the same to come in
non-service divisions
* Changes to redundancy policy involving a massive
reduction in salary protection for redeployed staff
Staff are now being told they must sign to ‘agree’ a reduction
in their terms and conditions. If they refuse to
sign, management are threatening to implement the
changes without consent by sacking staff and offering
re-employment on new contracts with reduced terms
and conditions.
Effect on Shelter
The attacks will directly affect the quality of advice and
support given to some of the most vulnerable in society
– those who are homeless or badly housed. In
future, this work will be done by lower paid and less
skilled staff. What is more they will be under pressure
to “tick boxes” for contract purposes rather than prioritise
high quality, independent advice and support
services to those who need them.
This will seriously impact upon Shelter’s policy and
campaigning work which is meant to be informed by
the experiences of badly housed or homeless people.
Front line staff are increasingly less able to pass on
these experiences to staff in campaigning and policy
because of top-down pressure to deliver contractual
targets.
These attacks have dragged down staff morale. Shelter
staff feel betrayed by a senior management team
who seem to care little about the services delivered to
those who are homeless or badly housed. The cuts will
severely undermine Shelter’s ability to retain staff and
with them, essential and long standing expertise.
Shelter staff, like many in the not-for-profit sector, have
over the years willingly made financial sacrifices to
work in this field because it is important to them. We
are extremely angry that our senior management team
now tell us our pay and conditions are too generous.
They earn top-tax bracket salaries and will be materially
unaffected by these changes. What’s more, they
refuse to deny rumours that they paid themselves an
increase just before announcing cuts to the rest of the
organisation. Senior management claim they are only
paid the market rate for what they do. And yet they are
seeking to drive down the market pay rate for the rest
of us. Staff are genuinely astonished at this hypocrisy.
The cuts will make it difficult for many staff members
to maintain mortgage and rent payments, a bitter irony
for us considering Shelter’s work. Staff members
worst affected will be those with child care costs. They
not only have to absorb a significant pay cut but also
will have increased child care costs to bear as a result
of longer working hours.
Management’s case for change
Senior management claim that there is ‘no more
money’, we are ‘too expensive’ and there is a need to
reduce core costs. They say we live in a ‘contract environment’
where Shelter has to compete for statutory
Defend Shelter staff’s
pay and conditions
Defend Shelter
Support those who support
in Shelter those in bad housing
funding sources. This means, according to them, that
unit costs have to fall to win contracts.
But senior management also want to ‘re-engineer’ the
business – in other words, Shelter. In order to fulfil
Government contracts, they say that the organisation
will have to deliver in multiple areas of legal advice.
They claim if staff do not keep up with the times, then
many more jobs will be lost than under the present
proposals.
What we say
We completely reject the basis and detail of their
assumptions.
Shelter has a turnover of just under £50 million a year
with £10 million in reserves. Only around 20 per cent
is statutory funding from Government.
We don’t agree that statutory contracts should be
obtained at any price, nor are they a major portion of
Shelter’s income. These contracts mean a ‘race to the
bottom’ in terms of staff pay and conditions of those
organisations who bid for them.
But even if Shelter could demonstrate that it paid its
staff the least and therefore had the lowest unit costs,
there is still no guarantee that bids will be won. If Shelter
goes down this road and therefore moves away
from providing high quality independent housing advice
and support, its voluntary contributions are likely
to fall. People donate to Shelter because they believe
it helps those in housing need.
Shelter management like to quote Shelter’s radical
campaigning past but are comfortable to be associated
closely with Government policy even when it is
decimating advice and support services and making it
harder and harder for those who are homeless or badly
housed to access good quality, independent services.
Shelter staff are concerned at being told there is no
more money for services, yet there appears to be money
for highly paid consultants and a swanky refurbishment
of the head office.
Staff are committed to Shelter remaining an independent
organisation campaigning against homelessness
and bad housing. Each of management’s proposals
hits different sections of the workforce but all will undermine
Shelter’s work and our conditions. That is
why we are standing together in opposition to these attacks.
Therefore we call on management to withdraw
their “organisational changes” in their entirety.
What you should do
* Send messages of support to union members in Shelter: shelterstewards@googlemail.com and
c/o Alan Scott, T&GWU, Woodberry, 218 Green Lanes, N4 2HB
* Send messages of protest to Shelter’s senior management team.
Please send hard copies and emails to Adam Sampson, Shelter, 88 Old St, London, EC1V 9HU
adam_sampson@shelter.org.u.k . Ask that it be forwarded to the Board of the Directors and copy
it to Shelter stewards at the above address.
* Pass resolutions in your trade union branches supporting stewards and condemning these attacks.
We say:
* No compulsory redundancies
* No downgrading of posts
* No pay cuts
* Defend the jobs, pay and conditions of all Shelter staff
* Don’t allow bids for Government funding to change Shelter’s core values