Correspondence 2001

We are solicitors instructed on behalf of the Lecturers’ Employment Advice & Action Fellowship [LEAF], a trade union in the United Kingdom that represents the interests of Further Education Lecturers. LEAF brought a Formal Complaint to the attention of the Commission in 1996, regarding the serious deterioration in the terms and conditions of employment of College lecturing staff following the transfer of their contracts of employment to newly-created 'Further Education Corporations' in 1993/94. LEAF was advised to seek appropriate redress before the national courts for what seems a clear breach of the safeguards afforded to employees by Directive 77/187/EEC (the 'Acquired Rights Directive', or 'ARD'). The Commission’s response to the Complaint is recorded in the Official Journal of the European Parliament, dated 10th December 1996. Our clients duly brought a test case before the Employment Tribunal; and have pursued the matter on appeal before the Employment Appeal Tribunal. Following the negative finding by the E.A.T. there is no realistic prospect of pursuing the claim further before the domestic courts. We are therefore now writing to make a formal complaint to the Commission, in the hope that DGVI will take action to remedy the very unsatisfactory situation that has arisen for LEAF's members as a result of the transfer.

The test case concerned Lecturers at Havering College of Further Education in London. Like all similar tertiary sector Colleges in England, Havering was effectively moved from the public to the private sector by the Further and Higher Education Act 1992. As a result, the Lecturers' employment was transferred from the state education authority (the 'local education authority', or 'LEA') to a newly established statutory corporation. It was conceded by Havering College for the purposes of the present case that this was a relevant transfer for the purposes of the ARD; and that the Lecturers were entitled to rely directly upon the ARD as against Havering College, because the College was, for these purposes, an emanation of the State (cf. Case C-188/89 Foster v. British Gas [1990] ECR I-3313 at para. 20).

The Lecturers' employment was governed by a collective agreement, known as the Silver Book, both immediately before and immediately after the transfer. Under UK law such collective agreements have never, in themselves, been legally binding on either side of industry. They acquire legal force through being incorporated (in this case, by express reference) into individual contracts of employment. Such collective agreements were however to be respected by both the employers' side and the union membership. In reality a breach of the collective agreement by the state employers would inevitably have led to industrial action. It is thus common ground that, although the state education authority was not legally bound by the collective agreement, in reality it could not alter the Lecturers' conditions of employment without reaching a new agreement with the unions. Nor did it ever attempt to do so prior to the transfer, which occurred on 1 April 1993. At no time has the collective agreement been re-negotiated, and it remains in force. As a result there are still some employees [including some at Havering] who are working on Silver Book terms. As a matter of reality, prior to the transfer all staff engaged by the LEA - whether on permanent contracts or (as in the case of those employees involved in the test case) a series of back-to-back one year contracts - were and could only be offered contracts incorporating Silver Book terms. Furthermore, the individual contracts of employment that were transferred, on 1 April 1993, from the LEA to Havering College were contracts that included, as legally binding terms and conditions, the provisions of the Silver Book.

Considerable evidence exists - and was placed before the national court - to demonstrate that the Further and Higher Education Act 1992 (i.e. the law transferring the Colleges out of state control to the new corporations) and its subsequent application were specifically designed to circumvent the existing collective agreements and the rights and protection that workers derived thereunder. We annex to this letter a selection of that documentary material. We strongly maintain that this is, indeed, a remarkable instance of an Act of Parliament being used deliberately and intentionally so as to 'break' the protection conferred by the ARD.

As had already been foreshadowed in the debates and circulars that preceded the transfer, what occurred post-transfer was that the new regime introduced by the new management openly and deliberately moved away from the Silver Book collective agreement to new contractual arrangements. It is again common ground that the new contracts are fundamentally different from the Silver Book contracts. It is clear - and indeed this is not seriously disputed - that the new contracts are significantly less advantageous for Lecturers, not only as to working hours and student contact hours (significant increases) but also holidays (significant decrease), sickness benefits (reduced), the requirement to remain on the premises for extended administrative tasks (gravely prejudicial to female Lecturers combining teaching with childminding responsibilities) and numerous other disbenefits. The only notional improvement was a payrise for those willing to switch to the new contracts.

The payrise did not, however, compensate for the loss of rights, particularly for those Lecturers who (often due to family commitments) could not easily adjust to the new hours. It is also right to record that, prior to the transfer (i.e., when the College was under LEA control), annual payrises were routinely negotiated under the Silver Book for all staff to improve pay in the tertiary education sector and compensate for increases in the cost of living.

Considerable pressure was exerted in order to make Lecturers switch to the new contracts. The financial pressure alone demonstrates the College's intent. Those permanent staffs who were able to, and chose to remain on Silver Book terms, have received no payrise since 1994. To this day, those remaining on Silver Book terms are still working to the salaries of seven years ago! Lecturers who had worked for years as quasi-permanent staff (and whose teaching load for the forthcoming year was routinely incorporated in class planning in the spring notwithstanding that, notionally, their one-year contract would end during the summer) were faced with the stark choice, either of accepting (under protest) the new contracts or of losing their jobs.

A group of Havering Lecturers acted as the applicants in the test case. The essence of their claim was that they had a Community Law right under the ARD to the continuation, after the transfer, of their pre-transfer contract terms and/or conditions of their employment relationship. These Lecturers were, for the most part, on yearly contracts which had been renewed, year after year, without discussion or difficulty, and who had in consequence unquestionably acquired protection under national law in respect of certain other employment-related rights (such as protection against unfair dismissal had they not been offered a renewal of their yearly contract). One applicant had been on a permanent Silver Book contract on temporary promotion to a higher-grade post. All accepted the new contracts under protest in 1994 (the alternative being to become unemployed, or forgo any prospect of promotion for the foreseeable future). At the same time, all signed a petition stating that the new contracts were a serious breach of the whole spirit and purpose of the ARD and contrary to Community law (a copy is at the final tab of the documents annexed hereto). They then brought proceedings in the Employment Tribunal for a declaration that they could go on working under their pre-existing employment terms, this being the procedural route and mechanism available to them under national law.

It should be emphasised that these Lecturers were doing the same, or substantially the same, jobs post-transfer as pre-transfer. There has been no substantial reorganisation of the business leading to substantial reductions in the workforce. Rather, what has happened is that the existing staff at the time of the transfer have been kept on to do more work under worse conditions of employment - precisely the mischief that the ARD is intended to prevent.

The Employment Tribunal held an 13 day hearing, with leading and junior EC law counsel representing the applicant Lecturers. The Tribunal deliberated for around 4 months. On 12 April 2000, the Employment Tribunal sent their judgment to the parties. Despite the obvious facts, the Tribunal found that the transfer had not been the reason (or at any rate not the 'sole reason') for the contractual change. In case that finding was wrong, the Tribunal also found that, since the Silver Book as a collective agreement was not legally binding on the state transferor, it was also not legally binding on the private transferee. By either route, the Tribunal concluded that the protection (if any) meant to be afforded by the ARD had duly been respected. There were other findings of law, but these are the ones that encapsulate the reasons why we failed at the tribunal stage. It is noteworthy that the Employment Tribunal did not find (and on the facts before it could not have found) that there were 'economic, technical or organisational reasons entailing changes in the workforce' (Article 4(1)) such as to justify dismissing members of the existing workforce and then re-engaging them on different and less advantageous terms.

The Tribunal itself agreed that there should be an appeal on these important points in what was a test case, and the Employment Appeal Tribunal (chaired by the President, The Honourable Mr. Justice Charles) agreed that there should be an appeal without the need for a hearing on permission to appeal. The appeal finally proceeded in February 2001, and again the Appeal Tribunal deliberated for over four months. A copy of the EAT's judgment (as revised and provided definitively to the parties on 22nd June 2001) is attached. We respectfully invite the Commission to study it in its entirety.

We submit that the judgments of the Employment Tribunal and subsequently of the Employment Appeal Tribunal demonstrate two important areas of concern:

1) How relatively easy it is - despite almost overwhelming evidence to the contrary - for a respondent to persuade a national court to find that there was no causal or factual connection between a transfer and a subsequent contractual change;

2) How the protection of a collective agreement is generically avoided by way of a transfer in the United Kingdom.

The Appellants' arguments before the EAT were essentially that the whole spirit and purpose of the ARD was to give the transferred employees the same contractual conditions post-transfer as they enjoyed pre-transfer. It was clear that pre-transfer there could be no move from the Silver Book. The whole transfer had been designed to circumvent the Silver Book. The teleology of the ARD and its specific provisions are intended to prevent that protection from being lost. An interpretation that permitted the College to commit the very act that the whole ARD regime exists to prevent simply could not be a lawful outcome under Community Law.

The Appellants argued that if necessary the terms 'employment relationship' and 'collective agreement' in Article 3 ARD should be given a Community law interpretation, so as to ensure that the Appellants' employment relationship before and after transfer (which was, manifestly, a continuing relationship) maintained the same essential characteristics, including the terms and conditions of the Silver Book (which had never been replaced or re-negotiated).

The EAT accepted:
....that there was a relevant transfer (para 3);....that the new contract terms were 'fundamentally different' (para 8); ....that the Appellants had protested at the time (para 6(7));.... that the collective agreement (i.e., the Silver Book) has remained in force (para 11).

Notwithstanding those findings, it dismissed the Appellants' appeal. Moreover, in so holding, it also considered that the matter was so clear against the Appellants that no reference to the Court of Justice of the European Communities was 'necessary' under Article 234 EC (ex Article 177) (paras 22, 23 and 68).

The EAT found that as collective agreements were not legally binding, they gave no protection to the workers (para 48). The Appellants argued for a teleological interpretation of the ARD, pointing out that the collective agreement had in fact been binding, and but for the transfer would have remained binding. That argument was dismissed by the EAT as merely 'pragmatic considerations' (para 49 - where 'pragmatic' is apparently used as a derogatory term). The Appellants' arguments that such an interpretation flies in the face of the words and spirit of both Article 3(1) ARD (transfer of employment rights) and Article 3(2) ARD (continued observation of collective agreement) were dismissed. In particular, the EAT applied a very strict test of causation to the connection of the transfer on the change of contract (see para 83 - great reliance placed on 'sole' reason). This was combined with the EAT's finding that 'employment relationship' and 'collective agreement' were to be given a restrictive national law interpretation (para 68) (compare and contrast the finding of the Court of Justice of the EC in Case C-78/98 Preston v Wolverhampton Healthcare NHS Trust & Others [2000] ECR I-3201, at paras. 66 to 72 of the judgment).

The result is that, despite the self-evident fact that there has been a detrimental change in the terms and conditions of LEAF members' employment, and despite the fact that this could not have occurred without the transfer, they are deprived of the protection of the ARD. Again, it is noteworthy that, because the College was an 'emanation of the State', this test case was explicitly decided on the basis of the ARD itself, not the national implementing legislation. Nevertheless, both the Employment Tribunal and the Employment Appeal Tribunal were readily prepared to accept a counter-teleological interpretation of the ARD and, in so doing, to deny these workers the protection afforded to them by the ARD.

We therefore point to two areas of concern with the ARD regime as it currently exists (or is currently applied by the national courts):

1) It appears to be too easy for national courts to avoid the effects of the ARD by applying too strict an approach to whether the transfer was the sole cause of the change in contract (we suggest it will always be possible to find some other contributory or additional cause, such as a general change in market conditions faced by the enterprise in question); and

2) In the United Kingdom specifically, the legal status of collective agreements as such renders entirely ineffective all those aspects of the ARD that relate to collective agreements, even where such agreements are given legal force through their incorporation in individual contracts of employment.

We specifically invite the Commission to consider whether, in permitting such a state of affairs to develop and to continue, the United Kingdom is complying with its obligations under the ARD and with the general duty of co-operation imposed upon it by Article 10 EC (ex Article 5).

We point out in passing that we remain engaged nationally in this matter. Although our national legal remedies are now exhausted in relation to the change in the terms and conditions of employment (there is no realistic prospect of further appeal), there remains the matter of the Lecturers who have refused to change from the Silver Book, and who have had no payrise in eight years. Again, national employment legislation makes it hard (and probably impossible) to find an appropriate procedural route to seek a remedy for this injustice while the Lecturers remain in employment, but we are currently bringing proceedings in cases where this 'starving out' strategy has led to members having to leave their employment.

We hope that the Commission will take action on the points highlighted in this formal letter of complaint. We shall, of course, be more than happy to supply additional information, whether by correspondence or through a meeting, if that would be of assistance.

I wish to draw your attention to a situation involving a serious breach of the spirit and purpose of the Acquired Rights Directive by the United Kingdom. A copy of our Complaint to the Commission, drafted by leading EC law counsel and issued through our solicitors, is appended to this letter. As a Member of the European Parliament, and in particular in regard of your membership of relevant Committees, I am confident that you will want to be appraised of this situation. We naturally hope to enlist your support in bringing this matter to the full attention of Directorate-General VI.

The following paragraphs aim to provide, in outline terms, the background to the events that have led to our Complaint. In so doing, I hope to give you some indication of the time, effort, and expense, this small union has incurred in seeking justice for those affected by the United Kingdom’s breach of European law.

On the 1st April 1993, Colleges of Further Education in the United Kingdom were removed from local authority control, pursuant to the Further & Higher Education Act 1992. As a consequence of this Act of Parliament, the 460 plus Colleges in the United Kingdom became statutory corporations. All of the rights and obligations under the local authority employer transferred to the new Further Education corporations [FECs]. This change of employer constituted a relevant transfer for the purposes of the Acquired Rights Directive.

Before “vesting day”, 1st April 1993, ministers of the United Kingdom Government were writing to Principals and Chairs of the new corporations, advising them of the need to introduce new and worse contracts of employment for Lecturers. This pressure continued, backed up by the Government’s threat to withhold funding from those Colleges that did not significantly move away from Lecturers’ pre-transfer terms and conditions, and impose new and worse contracts of employment.

As a consequence, since the change of employer took place in 1993, academic staffs have been dismissed for refusing to agree to a substantial worsening of their terms and conditions of employment, or had to concede under severe economic duress to substantial and detrimental changes to their contracts, or have been made redundant from their posts.

Those who refused to transfer to the new and worse terms were and continue to be denied pay increases. The sector has been systematically drained of those staffs who chose to remain on their transferred terms under the protection of the Directive, by the measures I have described. Only small pockets of staff remain on the Silver Book terms.

To put the point plainly, the working lives of thousands of academic staff in the Further Education sector in the United Kingdom have been blighted. Those who managed to remain on their transferred terms and conditions, have been denied even cost of living pay increases since 1994, which denial has seriously damaged the pension entitlements of these staff, because the Teachers Pension Scheme is a final year salary scheme. Further, these staffs have been denied promotion, denied staff development or treated less favourably, and have been made more vulnerable to dismissal and redundancy.

Our Complaint therefore has a long history and you are advised that we originally brought our Complaint to the attention of the European Commission during the course of 1996. Indeed, Commissioner Flynn’s remarks on the matter are to be found at pages 92-3 of the Official Journal dated 10th December 1996.

In essence Commissioner Flynn said that we must first bring a case before the national courts and that when these matters are tested, and following a judgment in the national court, it would be his intention to carry out an analysis of the case and the points that we had raised. The judicial route specified by the Commissioner was followed.

We had submitted a test case to the United Kingdom’s employment tribunal service in 1994, but the case was stayed pending judgments in other similar but unrelated cases. The test case, [Ralton & Others -v- Havering College of Further and Higher Education], was resurrected in 1998, and came before the Employment Tribunal in 1999. The Tribunal, in the face of a mountain of facts to the contrary, found in favour of the Respondent and the case was appealed before the Employment Appeal Tribunal in London. After hearings lasting 13 days in total, the Employment Appeal Tribunal once again found in favour of the Respondent.

I here replicate a paragraph from the Formal Complaint drafted by leading EC law counsel for the Appellants’ [our members] in the test case to which I refer above.

“Considerable evidence exists - and was placed before the national court - to demonstrate that the Further and Higher Education Act 1992 (i.e. the law transferring the Colleges out of state control to the new corporations) and its subsequent application, were specifically designed to circumvent the existing collective agreements and the rights and protection that workers derived thereunder. We annex to this letter a selection of that documentary material. We strongly maintain that this is, indeed, a remarkable instance of an Act of Parliament being used deliberately and intentionally so as to 'break' the protection conferred by the ARD”.

I think you will agree that it is extremely unlikely that the above claim by leading counsel, supported by instructing solicitors, would be made in the absence of clear and irrefutable evidence to that effect. Indeed, it gives a chilling indication of the contempt shown by the United Kingdom, and by the national courts, for the protections afforded by the Directive. The documentary material annexed to the Complaint speaks for itself. Complete copies can be supplied at your request.

The material to which leading counsel refers in the paragraph above, includes instances of documents that precede the transfer by almost two years, and which set out, with amazing clarity, what would happen after the transfer took place on 1st April 1993 - namely a worsening of Lecturers’ terms and conditions. The debates and circulars that preceded the transfer accurately foreshadowed what in practice took place post-transfer. The new regime introduced by the new management, with the continuing direction and blatant support of the Government of the day, openly and deliberately moved away from the Silver Book collective agreement to new and much worse contractual arrangements.

The decision of the Employment Tribunal and subsequently the judgment of the Employment Appeal Tribunal clearly demonstrates how easy it is in the United Kingdom - despite almost overwhelming evidence to the contrary - for a respondent to persuade a national court to find that there was no causal or factual connection between a transfer and a subsequent contractual change.

I recommend that you read the Formal Complaint in its entirety, as it raises further important questions regarding the legal force of collective agreements in the context of a transfer of undertakings.

Lecturers’ contracts of employment were governed by a national collective agreement known colloquially as the Silver Book. The terms and provisions of that agreement were expressly incorporated into individual contracts of employment. The national agreement was not replaced, did not expire, and was not repudiated by either of the signatories to the agreement. Nor had the United Kingdom taken advantage of the provision in the Acquired Rights Directive, to limit the continuance of collective agreements to not less than one year.

The Employment Appeal Tribunal accepted:

1. that there was a relevant transfer

2. that the new contract terms were 'fundamentally different'

3. that the Appellants had protested at the time

4. that the collective agreement (i.e., the Silver Book) has remained in force

Notwithstanding those findings, it dismissed the appeal. Indeed, the EAT considered that the matter was so clear against the Appellants that no reference to the Court of Justice of the European Communities was 'necessary' under Article 234 EC (ex Article 177). The EAT found that as collective agreements were not legally binding in the United Kingdom, they gave no protection to the workers. Counsel for the Appellants argued for a teleological interpretation of the ARD, pointing out that the collective agreement had in fact been binding, and but for the transfer would have remained binding.

That argument was dismissed by the EAT as merely 'pragmatic considerations' (where 'pragmatic' is apparently used as a derogatory term). The Appellants' arguments that such an interpretation flies in the face of the words and spirit of both Article 3(1) ARD (transfer of employment rights) and Article 3(2) ARD (continued observation of collective agreement) were dismissed. In particular, the EAT applied a very strict test of causation to the connection of the transfer on the change of contract - great reliance placed on 'sole' reason. This was combined with the EAT's finding that 'employment relationship' and 'collective agreement' were to be given a restrictive national law interpretation in contrast with the finding of the Court of Justice of the EC in Case C-78/98 Preston v Wolverhampton Healthcare NHS Trust & Others [2000] ECR I-3201,

The result is that, despite the self-evident fact that there has been a serious and substantial detrimental change in the terms and conditions of our members' employment, and despite the fact that this could not have occurred without the transfer, they were deprived of the protection of the ARD. Again, it is noteworthy that, because the College was an 'emanation of the State', this test case was explicitly decided on the basis of the ARD itself, not the national implementing legislation. Nevertheless, both the Employment Tribunal and the Employment Appeal Tribunal were readily prepared to accept a counter-teleological interpretation of the ARD and, in so doing, to deny these workers the protection afforded to them by the ARD.

If the United Kingdom is allowed to show a complete disregard for the protections of European law following a transfer of undertaking in respect of these public sector workers, one must ask what other groups are likely to be affected? The developments of Public/Private Finance Initiatives in the United Kingdom raise the spectre of further transfers of undertakings in the public sector. Given the experiences of Further Education Lecturers in the United Kingdom with Government, and before the national courts, we have serious concerns for the protection of EC law in regard of other public sector workers faced with a change of employer.

On the 1st July 2001, the Minister for Trade & Industry introduced new rules empowering employment tribunals to issue orders for costs of up to £10,000 in circumstances where the case is considered by the tribunal to be “misconceived”. The Secretary of State’s powers to make the rules of employment tribunals, together with his wide powers to intervene in cases to which he is not a party, has raised very serious questions about the independence and impartiality of the service.

The recent case of T. Smith -v- The Secretary of State for Trade & Industry [EAT 1999] found it to be not clear whether the Employment Tribunal Service in the UK could be regarded as independent and impartial in relation to claims brought against the State, partly but not solely for the reasons given above. Moreover, the right to appeal to the Employment Appeal Tribunal is limited to correcting errors of law. So, even if the EAT was properly to be regarded an independent and impartial tribunal, its opportunity to correct important factual errors was essentially non-existent. Under Art.6(1) European Convention on Human Rights (‘the Convention’) citizens are entitled to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal.

There is therefore a real and troubling question as to whether employment tribunals in the United Kingdom could properly and lawfully meet the requirement of independence and impartiality in claims against the State or an arm of the State. There is therefore a very troubling state of affairs for the ordinary British worker, who looks to the Employment Tribunal Service to deal with his complaint without the threat of excessive costs. It is an even more troubling state of affairs for the public sector worker, on the further ground of the service’s “apparent” lack of independence and impartiality in cases brought against State organisations.

If you feel that you can help us raise the important matters set out in our Formal Complaint, with Commissioner Diamantopoulou, we would be very grateful. If you wish us to send you any further information on the matter or to correspond with you on any of the points we have raised, please contact us at the address at the bottom of the first page of this letter.

Thank you for taking the time to read this letter.

Yours sincerely,

David F. Evans
General Secretary LEAF

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Recommended draft letter for all Lecturers to send to your Member of the European Parliament, Member of Parliament, and European Commissioner

Dear [MEP]

COMPLAINT TO THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION

I am writing to you as the MEP for the constituency in which I live, in the hope that I can enlist your support in bringing the matter of a Formal Complaint against the United Kingdom to the full attention of the European Commission.

The Lecturers’ Employment Advice & Action Fellowship, LEAF, has recently written to you to draw your attention to a Formal Complaint they have made to the European Commission on behalf of Further Education Lecturers. The Complaint, which has been drafted by leading EC law counsel and issued through the Union’s solicitors, deserves to be taken very seriously. A covering letter sent to you by LEAF briefly explains; the background to the national test cases, the complaint the Union brought in 1996, and the current Complaint to the Commission.

That letter and copies of the Formal Complaint, in addition to being sent to yourself and your United Kingdom colleagues, has, I understand, also been sent to the 194 members of the Employment & Social Affairs and Citizen’s Freedoms & Rights Committees of the European Parliament. The Formal Complaint and related correspondence is in the public domain, and can be accessed from LEAF’s website.

[As a member of LEAF] I am very much aware of the matters LEAF cites in its correspondence, and I support the efforts the Union has made to seek legal redress for the serious injustices we Lecturers have suffered since the removal of colleges from local authority control in 1993. I hope now to be able to make you aware of the impact the events that flowed from the change of my employer in 1993, have had on my life [and that of my family].

I commenced my career as a Lecturer in [subject area] within the Further Education sector [date] and [am] [was] employed by [**** college] between [dates]. The “new” contract, referred to in the Formal Complaint, represented a serious deterioration to Lecturers terms; adding [6] [7] hours a week to my contracted hours of work and removing [4 weeks annual holiday] as well as increasing the number hours of student contact, i.e. teaching hours, from [**] to [**]. There were many other detrimental aspects to the contract to which I have not referred in this letter.

1. Following the change of employer from [local authority] [county council] to Further Education Corporation in 1993, I was [put under considerable pressure] [threatened with {redundancy} {dismissal}] if I did not sign a new College contract]. I signed the new contract on [date] because [reason].

2. [I was told by the Principal on or about [date] that if I did not sign a new I may be [made redundant] [dismissed] because the government would holdback 2% of the College’s funding until new and more flexible contracts were introduced.]

3. I was told, unequivocally, that I would not receive a pay increase in the future unless I signed the College contract.

4. I signed the College contract because [reason] on [date].

5. As a [single] parent, the new terms have made my life very difficult [reasons] and have cost me [£***.**] in additional childcare fees and travelling costs etc.

6. [I refused to sign the College contract, was denied any pay increases, and the impact of the College’s policy upon my pension rights has been dramatic.] [If I had received the pay increases given to my colleagues on the College contract, my pension calculations would have been as follows [****] but because of the College penalising me for maintaining my lawful right to remain on my transferred terms and conditions, my pension calculations are as follows: [****].

7. As a consequence of adhering to my lawful rights to remain on my transferred terms, I have been denied any opportunity whatsoever of progressing my career. The only way in which I could achieve a promotion in the College was by signing away my lawful rights and to transfer to a new and much worse contract of employment.

8. [The College is now in its 8th year of denying even cost of living pay increases to those who refused to transfer to a new and worse contract.]

I firmly believe that the United Kingdom Government deliberately used the transfer of employer in 1993 as a means to bring to an end the rights that had been collectively agreed with the former [local authority][county council employer]. I understand that LEAF has a substantial quantity of documents, many of them pre-transfer, that provide clear and irrefutable evidence of the connection between the transfer and the changes to Lecturers’ terms, and that show clearly the intentions of the government to force through those changes.

I fully support the Formal Complaint that LEAF is making to the European Commission and ask that you do all that you can to bring the Complaint to the attention of Directorate-General VI.

I am copying this letter to my M.P. and to Commissioner Anna Diamantopoulou.

Yours sincerely,

Your name

[Position] [Institution]

cc:
Your Member of Parliament

Commissioner A. Diamantopoulou
Directorate-General VI
The European Commission
Brussels
Belgium

Note:

We enclose the above draft letter for use by Lecturers to adapt according to your own circumstances (substituting your own information for all the highlighted text, deleting the inapplicable statements etc.).

Either from within Netscape Navigator/Communicator or Internet Explorer, you can highlight the letter's text on this page, Copy it, then Paste the full content into your own, new, opened word-processing document to complete the letter as you require, preparing three copies for the three identified officials.

Find your local Member of the European Parliament here:

http://www.europarl.org.uk/uk_meps/MembersMain.htm

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It is our understanding that this year, the College has awarded a cost of living increase, and an increase in the London weighting allowance, to those staff who remain on contracts governed by the Silver Book collective agreement. While we welcome this change in the College’s policy toward Silver Book staff, the increase in their salaries and London allowances have not redressed the very significant losses that resulted from the College’s decision to freeze their pay and London allowances between 1994 and 2001.

In regard of London Allowances, you will of course be aware that these allowances had been made to public sector staff for a considerable period of time. Prior to incorporation, local authority standard spending assessments took account of local labour costs and under the local authority employer, annual adjustments in London weighting allowances reflected the additional costs of working in London.

Following incorporation, the Further Education Funding Council calculated a London weighting factor [LWF] for each institution. The factor was based upon information about the level of London allowances paid to staff by the institution, expressed as a percentage of total expenditure. As you will know, the London weighting factor’s multiplier effect operated to uplift the total cash allocation to the College.

We understand that staff employed at Merton College on the College Contract have, on an annual basis since incorporation, received the same percentage increase on their London weighting allowance as was accorded to them for their cost of living pay increase. I am confident you will agree that that all staff employed by the College would be classified as public sector staff, yet the College, until this years pay round, persisted in treating Silver Book staff differently from their colleagues on College Contracts.

We shall therefore be pleased if you will furnish us with the following information.

1. A clear explanation as to why the London allowances of Silver Book staff at Merton College remained unchanged since 1994, while the London allowances of staff employed on College Contracts have increased on an annual basis.

2. The reasons that lay behind the decision that has led to a change in the College’s policy toward Silver Book staff and resulted in the College’s pay review body awarding increases this year.