Friday, May 7, 2010

Unfairness on Election Duty Updates

As my statement on 5th May 2010, I was unfairly dismissed from the one night job on Election Night's postal vote opening session. For this 8-10 hours job starting at 5pm Wednesday, I should have been paid £100 - an extra income that I desperately neeed for the sake of my beloved son. However, after asking a question about workers' right of 11 hours rest to the coordinator ("Governance Officer Chris Shepherd"), I received an answer that my one night job is terminated. She gave me a lame excuse that the position is full.

I have raised this issue to her manager and he promised to start investigating this by next week. I have also been consulting with my GMB union representative. Today I will consult an employment solicitor.

This is not just a matter of one night job and my lost of £100 right. This is about workers right (which is part of human right). This is about unjust conduct - releasing me from my election duty right after I ask a legal question. And this is about the rights of my 21 other colleagues who are still in Town Hall when by time I write this blog (6am, Thursday 7th May) but denied their special leave/automatic release from work for election duty. Other City Council staff on election duty - those who worked at polling stations and those who counted the ballots - are given special leave/relase, while the 22 staff doing the postal vote opening are denied this special leave and forced to take annual leave or go straight back to work after working for over 15 hours!


This is what i should be doing on election night had the so called "governance officer" did not deny my worker's rights and terminate my one night job unjusticely!!!!

2 comments:

  1. wordbeautyMay 9, 2010 at 2:56 PM

    more than 15 hours work and no leave permit? ... that's inhuman! ... is this really happening in the UK?

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  2. AMTMay 10, 2010 at 7:07 AM

    yeah.. most of them (I should be one of them should there be no unfair dismissal because I asked a question) were working Thursday morning for about 7 hours, then continue to Town Hall and did the postal vote opening from 5pm until morning (Manchester only got the result by 7am, so...just do the math), then they are denied their special leave on Friday. So either they have to work again Friday morning or FORCED to take annual leave. While other election workers (who were at polling stations and counting votes) were released from work - i.e. received special leave. This is absolutely disgusting! Do you think I should keep quiet about this? I don't think so.... Some MEP (Member of European Parliament) will definitely hear about this! I will continue fighting this until I receive a letter of apology from the coordinator...
    Btw Fantasticwriter, I am sure you are familiar with the labourer in Indonesian manufacturers who were dismissed unfairly after joining the union and actively campaigning for their workers' rights. Now, draw your own connection with what happened here (this is a smaller scaler of course, but still a blatant violation on workers' rights which is the building block of our Democracy system)

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