Stoppage of more than a week could affect housing association cashflow
Staff at the Housing Corporation have voted to go on strike over the corporation's restructuring plans.

Any stoppage of more than a week in the departments responsible for administering grants could affect housing association cashflow.

Nearly three quarters of the Unison members who took part in the ballot voted for industrial action over the corporation's Achieving Excellence programme (HT 28 February, page 9).

The public service union has 170 members at the corporation but only two-thirds of them took part in the ballot.

Fellow union Amicus, which has around 230 members in the organisation, also voted in favour of a strike: of the 135 votes cast, 88 were in favour of action and 47 were against.

A corporation spokeswoman said it would make a statement "in due course".

Union officials have been actively seeking the opportunity to call a dispute

Norman Perry, Housing Corporation chief executive

The unions are protesting against staff redeployment and changes in pension rights for staff taking early retirement at the end of the month under the restructure. They are also pressing for greater trade union involvement in the changes.

Staff will meet with the corporation's management this week. If the meeting fails to reach a resolution, unions must give the corporation seven days' notice of any industrial action.

Before the ballot, corporation chief executive Norman Perry wrote to staff at their homes asking them not to strike.

The letter said: "Union officials are not interested in modernising and moving the organisation forward and have been actively seeking the right matter and opportunity to call a dispute."

It added that involving trade unions in the review board panels that made decisions on the redeployment of staff would "compromise the rights of union members who wish to lodge appeals against the decisions".

Unison regional officer Stuart Barber said: "Many hours of valuable time have gone into talks and we have to say no. We have made an open invitation to Norman Perry to meet us. Being 'anti-modernisation' is a euphemism to say trade unions, staff and employees reject downsizing." He said he hoped the situation could be sorted out without industrial action.

Source

Housing Today