Bosses at Sirona care & health have today made a new offer to Unison in a bid to find a resolution to the strike disrupting services at residential homes and Extra Care facilities in Bath, Keynsham and Midsomer Norton.
Unison representatives were invited to meet senior management this afternoon and have agreed to put the offer to its members and give a decision to Sirona later this week.
The trade dispute centres around moving staff in these services from paid to unpaid breaks when they work more than six hours which is consistent with other providers of residential and extra care services and with other staff within Sirona.
Janet Rowse, Chief Executive, said: “We have always been genuinely sorry that the action we needed to take to address a gap in funding for these services impacted on staff and while we respect the right of staff to protest we do need to find a way forward.
“We have been talking to staff since last summer and have managed to address the gap through reduced management and overhead costs and have done our best to accommodate staff requests including protecting alternate weekends off and ensuring the opportunity to pick up additional shifts to protect their income. More than half of affected staff have accepted the new rota.
“Although an earlier offer to avert the strike was rejected, we felt it was important we tried again to find something which would mitigate the financial impact on staff and bring this period of industrial action to a close.
“Therefore, we have today offered to Unison that we will pay all affected staff a one-off payment. This would be based on the financial difference between an individual’s current rota and proposed rota for a 12 month period. This offer is conditional on the dispute coming to an end including ceasing strike action immediately and new rotas being in place from 1 September.
“We believe we have been fair and reasonable throughout and hope that staff and their union representatives will also feel this is a fair outcome in what we acknowledge is a difficult situation for all of us.
“Industrial action causes expense which in a not-for-profit organisation like ours can only be covered by funds designated for care; we do not believe this is in the interests of staff or service users. This is why we continue to seek resolution to these issues.
“We have incredible teams working in our care services and I want to build on this so that together we can continue to provide excellent quality care for our residents and tenants.”
