Has anyone ever ever raised a concern about a team/procedure/individual to a union before? Basically, my Payroll department are utter cunts and didn’t pay one of our staff until a week and a half after they should’ve been paid. The member of staff had to borrow money from her 87 year old mother who’s really ill, just to keep afloat. The reason she wasn’t paid is entirely the fault of the Payroll Department, yet no one, not even their head, is taking responsibility for it. Our Internal Audit team are saying that yes, we have a shit procedure and staff could get shafted again as a result, and there’s no contingency for this. I’m not sure where else to go now apart from my union.
I have some reservations on account of the fact it might stress people in Payroll out, but also I’m thinking fuck it, they let someone go without any money for a week and a half and seemingly didn’t care. So yeah, tell me stuff, enlighten me, empower me.
Sounds really rough and frustrating for that member of staff. First question though, and I’m sorry if this sounds really condescending but I have to ask to get it out of the way - are you (or them?) already in the union? If not you’ll have to join before you get any kind of help. I don’t think both of you will need to be signed up but I’m not 100% sure on that.
If you are you’ll need to get in touch with your local branch representative. If you already know who they are, you could send them an email saying you’d like to chat about an issue. If you don’t know or aren’t sure, you’ll need to call the Union’s helpline who’ll give you the contact details for your representative. Unison’s can be found here.
Thanks Otto - yeah I’m a member of Unison. I guess I’m a bit reticent about pursuing this, it’s evident that there are senior staff who are trying to play it down and avoid dealing with it, could be a can of worms situation but what if it happens again? Eurgh, wish management would take some fucking ownership over their shit.
Without knowing anything about the ins and outs of where you work (so it’s easy for me to say) I would definitely speak with the union privately about this. Even if nothing comes of it, it would be useful information for the union to have further down the line.
Very hard to predict how this sort of thing can go, but if you’re worried about the can of worms aspect to this there’s no harm in saying that up front when you speak to the unison representative. They’ll be able to give you some better clarification on what could happen. Hope you get something out of it!