Average Earnings up 4.6%

Average earnings rose 4.6% in the year to February 2007. This is
roughly in line with inflation and 2.7% higher than our proposed pay
rise. it is also 2.1% higher than the pay rise that the unions
accepted before the government decided to reduce it to 1.9% by staging
it. If you would like to see the full report go to:
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/lmsuk0407.pdf.

Myth of the Month

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has a website that deals with
popular misconceptions the public has about health and safety rules.
The address is:
http://www.hse.gov.uk/myth/index.htm

Unison Rejects Staged Pay Rise

The Unison healthcare conference has voted unanimously to reject the
staged pay rise which at 2.5% was already well below the current
retail price index of 4.8%. The full story is at:
http://www.unison.org.uk/news/news_view.asp?did=3219

The Pay Rise Has Become Even Smaller

Inflation is now at 4.8% making our pay rise nearly 3% less than
inflation. For someone earning £20,000, this is a loss of £600 over
the next year.

No Compulsory Boxing Day Working in 2007

In the donor carers terms and conditions agreement of April 2003, it states specifically that staff will have to work up to three bank holiday weekends (four for component donation staff). As Christmas and Boxing Day are not part the weekend this year, staff are not required to work on Boxing Day unless they volunteer to do so.

Management may argue that this was not their intention when they made the agreement, but contracts are only based on the words actually in them and not the intentions of the parties involved. If they want you to work Boxing Day, they may have to offer an extra incentive or they may decide that since we are working normally on the Monday and Thursday of that week, there is no urgent need for Boxing Day collections.

The relevant paragraph in the agreement is 21.7.2 which reads as follows:

"In order to improve the availability of critical short shelf life products all staff may be rostered to work on up to a total of 3 days pa during Public Holiday weekends (Static Site staff - up to 4 days pa)."

Converting Blood Groups

There is an article in today's Times about a new procedure to convert all blood groups to 'O'. There is at least one major error in the article and it also claims that we waste 10% of the blood we collect and credits the NHSBT as the source of this information.

Branch Meeting

The TGWU branch of the NHSBT held its annual general meeting at Transport House in central London on 26th March 2007. Amongst the areas of discussion were the high votes in favour of the merger with Amicus by both unions and the selection or reconfirmation of branch officers.

Paul Selby was reconfirmed as the branch secretary and David Linsey was selected as branch chair.

Maximum Temperatures

As the weather warms up, the problem of venues overheating will recur. Whilst there is no legal maximum temperature in the UK, the World Health Organisation recommends that indoor temperatures should be between 18^o and 24^o C. The NHSBT is already committed to exceeding legal minimums so the lack of a specific upper temperature should not be a problem. An article in the Observer on Sunday, 1st April 2007 highlights a threat by teachers to leave classrooms if the temperature exceeds 27^o C. With strong anecdotal evidence of increased donor reactions, we should make sure that this issue is high on the health and safety agenda. If we are actually moving to more static sites, we should have guarantees that they will be maintained at a comfortable working temperature throughout the year.