Please support the PCS campaign for fair pay in the public sector:

We the undersigned call for a change in the government's unjust public sector pay policy by removing the 2% pay cap. Instead we call for the government to offer pay deals that at least match inflation (retail price index) and ensure no cuts in living standards.

You can sign the petition online by following the link below:

http://www.pcs.org.uk/en/campaigns/national-pay-campaign/pay-petition.cfm

+++ MoD Pay Update +++

MoD Pay - Ongoing Discussions on Pay and E1/E2 Issues

PCS negotiators will meet the MoD pay team on Friday 23rd January 2009 for further discussions on the employer’s pay proposals for 2008-2011. We intend to start discussions on the following issues:

· Pay proposals for E1 and E2 max and the pay protection allowance
· Retained grades and market skills supplements (MSS)
· Agreed process for ongoing pay discussions
· Additional progression and the application of the payments
· Equal pay and age discrimination issues
· MoD admin costs budget
· 2009 Treasury Remit guidance (if possible)

A full report back on this meeting will be issued to PCS members shortly.

MoD proposals for the E1 and E2 Max

PCS totally opposes the current MoD proposals for staff in the E1 and E2 pay bands. We believe it would be completely unjust and unfair to penalise the lowest paid staff in the department by cutting their pay band maxima. It would be equally wrong to force thousands of hard working staff to accept non consolidated pay awards and also miss out on additional progression payments based on length of service.

Many PCS members have contacted us to make clear their anger at the proposals from the employer, and consultation with branches has revealed that this element specifically of the MoD proposal is totally unsatisfactory and that we cannot recommend acceptance of the award unless this issue is satisfactorily resolved.

Pay protection allowance

A number of members have contacted our union about the potential loss of pension entitlements if these proposals are enacted. In fact, the proposed pay protection allowance is fully pensionable. The allowance would top up the difference between an existing salary and the new max. Members would not to lose a penny in current pay or in current final salary pension payments.

Members are also asked to note that the max at both E1 and E2 does increase over the 3 years of the proposed deal and that this increase is fully consolidated and pensionable. We would expect the same arrangements to apply for future increases to the maxima at E1 and E2.

Finally we are fully aware that MoD has failed to provide a guarantee that the allowance will be paid for life (or at least until the max gets back to where it is now). We are also seeking further discussions on this issue and have made it clear that this issue must be must be resolved.

Legal considerations

PCS is already in consultation with our lawyers about the legality of the department’s proposals for staff at the E1 and E2 Max. As these proposals are not due to come into force until May 2009 we still have time to find an acceptable way forward with the department on this issue. However, should this not be possible we will set out that advice to members and publish guidance that would be applicable to all PCS members at pay band’s E1 and E2. Please check the MoD section of the PCS website (www.pcs.org.uk/mod) regularly for further updates on pay.

Current position and PCS bargaining agenda

It is worth restating that the proposals for the reduced maxima at pay band’s E1 and E2 have come from MoD and that PCS is fully opposed to this element of the pay award. We are dismayed that MoD would wish to attack the pay of some of the lowest paid staff in MoD.

Our union has therefore not accepted the MoD pay offer and we have agreed that further discussions between PCS and the department should take place on this and other key pay issues. When we believe we have exhausted the process we will ballot our members on the offer from the employer.

The forthcoming talks will focus on the recent national agreement on pay between PCS and the Cabinet Office/Treasury to see if this can result in further improvements to the offer. PCS will make clear that we must address the unacceptable proposals contained in the offer to reduce the E2 and E1 maxima and to pay impacted staff a small non-consolidated award.

The current proposals mean that some of the lowest paid staff will benefit less from this offer than other, comparatively better paid staff. This is unacceptable and our union will be doing all that we can to resolve this.

A further update on pay for PCS members will be issued shortly.

Sick Leave, Annual Leave and the Working Time Directive

The European Court of Justice today delivered its judgment in Stringer, Ainsworth and others v Commissioners of Inland Revenue, Case No. C-350/06, following the referral of questions to it from the House of Lords.

The case concerned how the right to paid annual leave under the Working Time Directive, 2003/88, implemented in the UK by the Working Time Regulations 1998, operates in the circumstances in which workers are on long-term sick leave. The Court was asked to decide two questions. The first was whether a worker on indefinite sick leave could exercise the right to take annual leave. The second was whether a worker who had been sick for all of a leave year was entitled to a payment in lieu for untaken annual leave on termination of employment.

Holding that the right to annual leave is a fundamental social right, on the first question the Court ruled that, under the Directive, national law could either permit a worker to take leave while he or she was off sick or could deny the entitlement to take leave while off sick. But it added – and this is the critical point - that if national law prevented a worker off sick from taking annual leave, the worker must have the opportunity to take that leave at another time (paragraph 29). Currently, under UK law there is no right to carry over annual leave to the following year (see regulation 13(9)), so that a worker off sick who is not allowed to take leave in a particular leave year will simply lose the right at the end of the leave year.

This means that, in order to comply with the Directive, employees on indefinite sick leave must be allowed to take annual leave while they are sick; otherwise the worker will never have the opportunity to exercise the right at all. Alternatively the government will need to amend the Regulations to permit the carrying over of annual leave for those employees who cannot take it because of sickness.

On the second question, concerning the right to a payment on termination, the Court said that the right to annual leave is not lost because a worker happens to be sick for the whole of the leave year prior to termination and so has not been able to exercise the right to annual leave. It follows that an allowance in lieu, based on normal wages, must be paid to such a worker on termination of employment. Employers must, therefore, pay the allowance in lieu under regulation 14 of the Working Time Regulations to workers off sick for the whole of the leave year, and must ignore sickness absence in the calculation of the sum due. The ruling of the European Court effectively overturns the decision of the Court of Appeal in the proceedings.

The case will return to the House of Lords probably later this year, both to consider the effect of the judgment of the European Court of Justice and to decide whether a complaint about unpaid annual leave can be brought as a claim for deduction from wages.

The workers in the case were members of the PCS whose claim was supported by the union. Chris Jeans Q.C and Michael Ford were instructed by Thompsons.

The link to the decision on the ECJ website is: http://curia.europa.eu/jurisp/cgi-bin/form.pl?lang=EN&Submit=Rechercher$docrequire=alldocs&numaff=C-350/06&datefs=&datefe=&nomusuel=&domaine=&mots=&resmax=100