Lib Dem Group Leader, Councillor Dine Romero, has called on B&NES Council to step in to help resolve the pay dispute between Sirona management and staff, which has led to strike action by care workers.
Councillor Romero (Southdown) said: “Ultimately, care workers have been forced into this action by the Conservative Council and government who are starving local services of funding.
“The Council must urgently step in to resolve the situation. If they fail to act, vulnerable elderly and disabled residents, care workers and their families will be the ones to suffer.”
“The funding shortfall is £170,000, which should not be an insurmountable sum in the context of overall Council spending.
“Residents would be justified in asking why they are paying an extra 3% on their Council Tax for the ‘Adult Social Care Precept’ this year, if it is not to support front line staff.”
Sirona is £170,000 short after B&NES Council cut its funding in 2017, but council leaders have refused to intervene to help solve the problem.
In an email to UNISON, council leader Tim Warren claimed that the pay cut for Sirona employees would “bring them in line” with other care workers.
Lib Dem Health and Care spokesperson, Councillor Tim Ball (Twerton) added: “In the bigger picture, the Government must take urgent action to address the health and care funding crisis. We have seen report after report, but nothing concrete has been done.
“I will be questioning the Cabinet member about what efforts he has made to urge the government to act.”
UNISON organiser John Drake said: “The care workers have been left with no choice but to go on strike. We’ve negotiated with Sirona for months, but the pay cut is still on the table. These staff cannot afford to take a pay cut.
“Most of them are women, doing the lion’s share of caring in their own homes as well. Extra shifts are unworkable.
“B&NES created Sirona, it pays the firm to provide care services, and it cut Sirona’s funding last year. Council leaders need to take responsibility so we can find a way to avert the strike.
“It’s not acceptable for B&NES leaders to claim this pay cut is justified, and we’re asking members of the public to write to their councillors telling them just that.
“Last year the council found £3.4 million to cover its overspends. I think they can find less than one twentieth of that to help the care workers now.”
In a statement, Sirona Chief Executive Janet Rowse said: “Our focus today has been on ensuring residents and tenants at our Residential Homes and Extra Care facilities are safe and supported and I am grateful to those staff who have continued to work or agreed to cover these shifts. It has been a normal day for those in our care.
“We have been in conversation with Unison and staff since last summer as we have been keen to find alternative ways of meeting the funding gap; we have already reduced management and overhead costs.
“The issue for which we have not been able to find a solution with staff is the removal of paid breaks in shifts of six hours or more. Staff have been offered flexibility as to whether they maintain their income and do more hours or maintain their hours and reduce their income; the average impact would be about £300 a year.
“We have offered to cap the number of extra shifts anyone would need to work to no more than one in every four weeks.
“We do understand this proposal has an impact on staff and at Easter we offered two per cent of basic salary to help mitigate this; the offer was accepted by just under half of the workforce.
“Two weeks ago we offered via Unison a further eight per cent of basic salary as a one-off payment, which is around one month’s wages and this was rejected yesterday [Tuesday].
“Throughout the process we have also done our best to accommodate staff requests including protecting alternate weekends off.
“We are sorry and disappointed that we were unable to reach agreement with Unison over the issue and we do want to continue to have conversations to find a way forward. We remain open to considering other proposals from Unison and staff.
“Having unpaid breaks will ensure consistency with elsewhere in the sector and within Sirona and our pay and benefit package is competitive including sickness and holiday pay as well as pensions.
“We are not experiencing recruitment difficulties and currently there are on average four applications for every post.
“We advised the Council in January 2017 of the actual cost of running residential services but they were unable to make that level of funding available on an ongoing basis.
“The Council has provided additional funding for new developments including the transformation from residential to nursing care and to enable us to care for those with very complex dementia.
“We are grateful for this support, however, this funding does not solve the problem of the underlying gap.”
