dispute1 at Unison North West

We Are With You Wigan and Leigh

Posted on Disputes by · September 10, 2019 5:45 PM

#KeepYourPayPromise We Are With You!

Why is this important?

Belinda Phipps is CEO of We Are With You- she earns around £140,000 per year. Meanwhile, ex-NHS staff working for We Are With You in Wigan and Leigh stand to lose £150,000 during the course of the NHS Agenda for Change three year pay deal (April 2018- April 2021).

We will lose an average of £7,870 each during the course of Wigan Council's contract with We Are With You, with some of us losing out on as much as £10,974.

This is simply wrong and across five years, will suck £230,000 out of the local economy whilst We Are With You directs funding towards costly rebrands and its London headquarters.

We work hard for We Are With You in Wigan and Leigh to ensure that local people recover from addiction, regaining health, self esteem and becoming fully functioning members of our society.

We work in this field because we care and because it's rewarding to support recovery, but we deserve to make a decent living.

When we transferred over to We Are With You (formerly known as Addaction) from the NHS, we were promised the NHS rate for the job, but We Are With You have gone back on their word.

"Supporting people to overcome drug and alcohol addiction is an incredibly tough job and makes a difference for every single one of us in Wigan.

"We Are With You’s employees deserve the pay settlement they were promised when they moved from the NHS to We Are With You". Lisa Nandy, Wigan MP

We deserve a decent wage for doing what is an important job for our communities.

#WeAreNotWithYou #KeepYourPayPromise #BelindaFibs #WeWontPayYou

What action have we taken so far?

We took one day of strike action on Friday 23 August 2019 followed by two days of strike action beginning on Wednesday 11 September, then three days of strike action beginning on Wednesday 9 October, and then two periods of five days action beginning on Monday 4 November and then Thursday 27 February 2020. We have taken a total of sixteen days of strike action.