Workers will not lose pay through change in working conditions, says RBH Chief Exec

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Rochdale Boroughwide Housing's Chief Executive Gareth Swarbrick has said that none of the RBH employees that are set for a pay rise will see a decrease in actual pay because of a change in terms and conditions.

RBH is proposing a package of changes to terms and conditions which will affect all of its employees. However, Mr Swarbrick stated that very few of the changes proposed will affect the take home pay of those individual staff members whose basic pay is increasing.

Rochdale Online revealed the details of RBH's pay and grading review last week, with figures claiming that 85% of workers will get a pay rise or stay the same, while 15% will have their salaries slashed.

One employee told Rochdale Online that some workers will see a dubious change in working conditions, meaning their 'pay rise' could actually leave them with less money than they started out with, but RBH has denied these claims.

"None of the staff who are seeing an increase in basic pay should be adversely affected by these changes in terms of their take home pay," said Mr Swarbrick. "The only circumstances were this could be the case would be if an employee was doing lots of non-contractual overtime and was only seeing a small increase in basic pay. We do not believe that there is anyone in this position."

RBH are to cut the rate to be paid for non-contractual overtime, so-called voluntary overtime, from time and a half to time and a quarter Monday to Saturday, and double time to time and a half on Sunday.

They are not proposing any change to the rates for Contractual Overtime, Bank Holiday Working, Out of Hours Call Out, Standby Payments and Shift Allowances.

Many staff will see a reduction in their working week (repairs operatives and manual worker support services) from 37 hours to 36 hrs 15 minutes.

"Their annual pay will not be affected by this reduction in the working week," said Mr Swarbrick.