{"id":180,"date":"2010-08-20T12:05:10","date_gmt":"2010-08-20T11:05:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lasunison.sc12.co.uk\/eblog\/?p=180"},"modified":"2010-08-20T12:05:10","modified_gmt":"2010-08-20T11:05:10","slug":"reality-check-compensation-cheque-and-a-discount","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ericsblog.lasunison.com\/?p=180","title":{"rendered":"Reality Check, Compensation Cheque and a Discount!"},"content":{"rendered":"

I worked for twenty years on the front line at Camden Ambulance Station and, to be honest, Camden is still my spiritual home. It was the first and only station I worked at. I had great times and met great people throughout those years. <\/strong><\/p>\n

It was also a struggle of course\u00c2\u00a0which took in the National Dispute, the Computer Crash, real low pay\u00c2\u00a0as well as early, well documented,\u00c2\u00a0London Ambulance managerial appointment disasters! <\/strong><\/p>\n

I was the Station Steward as well as Branch Secretary of\u00c2\u00a0the NUPE (National Union of Public Employees) N\/W Ambulance Branch before becoming Convenor, Senior Sector Representative and then Branch Secretary of LAS Unison.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I still have great friends on station and ex Camden staff are dotted\u00c2\u00a0all over\u00c2\u00a0the Service\u00c2\u00a0doing jobs at every level.\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The point of this very quick\u00c2\u00a0potted history is that the more responsibility you take on, or is given to you, whether within the Union or the management structure, the more you are forced to move away from what you thought you\u00c2\u00a0joined the job for in the first place.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is a given. It will always happen no matter how you try to hold on. Your priorities, responsibilities and dynamics change. They have to, or you could not do the role you are in or been elected to.<\/strong><\/p>\n

So all that said it is great to be brought down to earth with a bump! And it had to be\u00c2\u00a0by a long serving member of staff at Camden!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Of the many emails I receive daily raising issues, concerns and complaints (as well as those thanking the Union) one stuck out that made me think (after, I admit, some resistance) that maybe I had taken some things for granted.<\/strong><\/p>\n

There has been vast improvements within our Service over many years without doubt. Improvements that Unison has led the way on.\u00c2\u00a0Nobody can seriously\u00c2\u00a0argue that pay and benefits are not substantially better, in real terms,\u00c2\u00a0now, then at any other time in this Service’s history. <\/strong><\/p>\n

I am proud of\u00c2\u00a0 mine and Unison’s role in that and will never allow others to\u00c2\u00a0underestimate what has been achieved. Our Senior Representatives are second to none and help keep the Union in the real world.<\/strong><\/p>\n

But the email got me thinking that for\u00c2\u00a0all these improvements notwithstanding, a lot of staff don’t really experience that anything has changed much.\u00c2\u00a0 To them the job is still the same, it is still too busy, it is still stressful, it is still too much time critical, it is still too much micro managed and, all in all, it is a thankless job most of the time.<\/strong><\/p>\n

As I said I am proud of what our members and representatives have achieved by helping\u00c2\u00a0move this Service into the 21st Century but, if in that same 21st Century staff are constantly stating that they feel harassed and bullied\u00c2\u00a0 (whether real or imagined) at work – something is wrong!<\/strong><\/p>\n

The improvements at one end do not match the job reality at the other! It is no good painting the exterior of a house if all the supporting walls inside are in danger of collapsing.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The improvements are real and what the staff feel is also real. The skill is to match the two up. How do we achieve that?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, let’s be honest with each other for a start! Let us shout about and be proud of what is good within the Service whilst also accept and acknowledge that there are a lot of things that are not right and these\u00c2\u00a0need to be sorted.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Chief Executive starts his annual consultation meetings in September and I urge as many staff as possible to join in.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Let us begin there by celebrating the good and righting the wrongs – together – honestly.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong>____________________<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Branch recently won compensation of around \u00c2\u00a39,000 for a member injured doing their job. I believe our Service is safe, and we work in partnership to make it so,\u00c2\u00a0but sometimes accidents and incidents\u00c2\u00a0happen.<\/strong><\/p>\n

As a Union we do not apologise for taking up cases where we believe our members are hurt or injured through no fault of their own while carrying out legitimate duties, where ever they work, or whatever job they do,\u00c2\u00a0within the Service.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Of course when someone is hurt or injured it is not always the fault of the Service. Many times outside agencies are at fault.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Unison\u00c2\u00a0legal benefits and representation is second to none. Since March this year we have gained\u00c2\u00a0over \u00c2\u00a354,000 in compensation and since March\u00c2\u00a01999 (when records began as they say!) we have gained over \u00c2\u00a31,600,000 in compensation for\u00c2\u00a0our members within LAS.\u00c2\u00a0Over one and a half million pounds! All that money went to our members to help them recover from injury.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is one other area of Branch Union work that sometimes is ignored or is not known by many. <\/strong><\/p>\n

You do not have to tolerate being hurt at work. On the other hand accidents are still\u00c2\u00a0rare in the big scheme of things, particularly taking into account the size of our Service and the enormous workload.<\/strong><\/p>\n

So as they used to say at the end of Crimewatch: sleep easy, don’t have nightmares and keep yourself safe. these things are not common.<\/strong><\/p>\n

____________________<\/strong><\/p>\n

Over 2000 London Ambulance Unison Discount Cards have already been distributed to our\u00c2\u00a0members in the last six months. These cards can be used at hundreds of local outlets ranging from restaurants, clothes shops, take aways, sports shops, garage services, gyms plus\u00c2\u00a0many national outlets\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0etc etc. There is at least a 10% discount and in a lot of cases much more.\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Members can also make suggestions to add to the list of shops and retailers in their local area where they live or even by the station or workplace where they work.<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you have not received one please get in touch via the website. This is one more great benefit of belonging to Unison.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Eric Roberts<\/strong><\/p>\n

Branch Secretary<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I worked for twenty years on the front line at Camden Ambulance Station and, to be honest, Camden is still my spiritual home. It was the first and only station I worked at. I had great times and met great people throughout those years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1753,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsblog.lasunison.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsblog.lasunison.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsblog.lasunison.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsblog.lasunison.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsblog.lasunison.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ericsblog.lasunison.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsblog.lasunison.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsblog.lasunison.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsblog.lasunison.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsblog.lasunison.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}