Staff working for mental health charity Second Step have voted to strike in a dispute over pay, says UNISON today (Thursday).<\/p>\n
More than 100 support workers, recovery specialists, accommodation workers and central staff will take action at workplaces across Bristol, Somerset, North Somerset, South Gloucestershire, Bath, Swindon and Wiltshire.<\/p>\n
Almost four in five workers (78%) who took part in the ballot backed strike action. Second Step delivers local authority and NHS-funded mental health services.<\/p>\n
Employees have seen the value of their wages fall each year because the charity has failed to award increases in line with inflation, so staff aren\u2019t keeping up with the cost of living,\u00a0says the union.<\/p>\n
The situation has been made worse by the employer\u2019s refusal to recognise the union in order to negotiate pay, terms and conditions, adds UNISON.<\/p>\n
Representatives from the union and\u00a0Second Step are taking part in talks through arbitration service Acas, in an effort to avoid industrial action.<\/p>\n
UNISON South West regional secretary Kerry Baigent<\/strong>\u00a0said: \u201cThese workers would prefer to focus\u00a0on supporting their clients. Instead, many are struggling to support themselves. Some of them\u00a0are relying on foodbanks and payday loans to get by.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s\u00a0disappointing that seven months since this dispute began, Second Step management has\u00a0failed to improve its offer in any way.\u00a0The charity should embrace Acas talks as an opportunity to end this dispute and avoid the disruption of a strike entirely.\u201d<\/p>\n Second Step recovery worker<\/strong>\u00a0Dan King <\/strong>said: \u201cSecond Step\u2019s response to this dispute is out of touch with the reality facing low-paid workers. Rents, energy bills and grocery costs continue to rise<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s\u00a0time for managers\u00a0to drop the delaying tactics and bring an offer to the table.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Staff working for mental health charity Second Step have voted to strike in a dispute over pay, says…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":597312,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8818],"tags":[381,748,393,4884,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-597311","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bristol","8":"tag-bristol","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115622164967322824","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=597311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597311\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/597312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=597311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=597311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=597311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}