Environment Agency Pay

This campaign has ended

Environment Agency staff vote on strike action over pay

UNISON is asking Environment Agency staff whether they would be prepared take industrial action to try to win a better wage rise than the 1.3% that’s been imposed on them. Since 2010 staff have faced a 20% real-terms pay cut.

UNISON says staff working for the agency are understandably angry, especially as the increase is way below that given to other public sector workers.

For example, colleagues doing the same job at the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency have accepted an offer of 3% for low-paid workers and 2% for higher earners.

Read the letter UNISON has sent to Environment Agency members

The ballot closes on Wednesday 3 April 2019.

 

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Environment Agency staff accept pay offer following industrial action

Environment Agency staff have accepted a pay offer which will see the lowest paid staff receive an 11% increase.

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Environment Agency staff set for out-of-hours ban

Workers will refuse to volunteer for on-call cover outside contracted hours from this weekend until 19 September, in continuing action over pay.

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Environment agency workers to walk out for four more days

Thousands of Environment Agency workers in England are to strike for four days over pay later this month, blaming government inaction for putting communities, waters and wildlife at risk.

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Recap: Striking for fair pay in the Environment Agency

Thousands of environment agency workers from across the country took strike action over pay on Wednesday.

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Picket lines announced for Environment Agency strike

Environment Agency employees belonging to UNISON and Prospect are set to take strike action this Wednesday (8 February).

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FAQs

FAQs

Environment Agency Pay

  • Am I contractually obliged to undertake any standby or out-of-hours work?

    Contracts vary across the Agency. There is no general requirement that staff work in excess of their contracted hours or participate in rosters.

    However, in some cases and for some roles, roster participation or regular out-of-hours working will have been established through requirement by the Agency. If action was supported in a ballot, members could take action where it was endorsed by their union, no matter their individual contractual position, and no action could be taken against them individually by their employer.

  • Did UNISON or other unions agree to the imposition of the award?

    No. This was imposed without any agreement. That is why we are planning to ballot on whether you would support action to make the Agency think again.

  • How can I make sure that my membership information is correct?

    Go to MyUNISON: www.unison.org.uk/my-unison

    You’ll need your membership number which the branch can give you. You need to make sure that your home address, workplace details and job title are correct.

  • I can’t afford to take action

    We understand that many members rely on standby and call out payments in order to supplement their salary. We have agreed as a principle that we will try to shield members from the worst impacts of any reduction in income during any action. We are still discussing how best to apply that formula but it will ensure a fairness to our members.

  • What action will you be balloting on?

    We intend to ballot on firstly, action short of strike. We will set out options including working to the general Agency contract (such as not travelling or working outside of your core work hours and not volunteering for actions you do not have to perform, like taking part in incident response rosters.

    Secondly, we’ll also ballot on strike action, which would enable those contractually required to do incident response and similar duties to take part in action.  

  • What is so complicated about the ballot process that you need to do all this checking?

    There are very strict conditions set out in law to make it hard for us to hold and win ballots. We need to make sure that no-one who should not receive a ballot paper does so, and that we make every effort to ensure address and other details are accurate. This means going through a process of validating the information we hold before we can proceed with a ballot.

  • Why is it taking a while for UNISON to take action?

    We need to make sure our membership data is in good shape before balloting, to make sure that our ballot gives a lawful result. We also want to act in concert with our sister unions at EA. Prospect, GMB and Unite all need, under their procedures, to hold a further indicative ballot on industrial action before they can ballot formally.