“Street vagrant” treatment by Comhairle 21/12/12
Sir,
As an employee of the Council I can shed some light on why there are such high levels of sickness among the work force. It is down to the very high work load pressures and very poor moral which in turn is caused by the way ground floor staff are treated by white collar management. Regardless of how diligent or hard working you are, one is just muck on the bottom of their shoes.
Over four years ago moral was fairly good, a good number of work force to deal with the high level of workload (work load which the public do not realise) pay was also sustainable and in the past years management then acknowledged to some extent the effort you put in. Since then we have had nothing but cuts upon cuts and most of them aimed at lower rank workforce. Few or no cuts where made at any of the higher ranks as they had implemented the cuts themselves.
Staffing was cut dramatically. Some would say that this was well over due, that may be correct, but the work load has not decreased but increased and increased again due to fewer staff.
Then there was a pay freeze for a number of years only to be followed by pay cuts, in some posts very large pay cuts. We then had the amazing Single Status where every body was supposed to be on equal pay, apart from the top brass who didn't come under single status legislation.
With this Single Status came more pay cuts, changes to your working contract where you lost some entitlements, Holidays and extra duties added, but worst of all the evaluation of your job made you feel worthless. Professional trades persons who had studied and gained qualifications and most importantly those with years of experience with multiple disciplines were evaluated to such a level as you may class a street vagrant.
So Mr Campbell you think on, who caused this so called high level of staff sickness?
LOW PAY + HIGH WORKLOAD + POOR MORAL = STRESS = SICKNESS
CNES Employee
Stornoway
Name and address has been withheld as the writer said they feared being sacked.