As our members will know, GMB have been in lengthy talks with Southern Coop Funeralcare regarding changes to rest breaks and rotas. 

As you will also be aware the recent increases to standby and callout rates are as a result of pay discussions which concluded at the start of this year and have already been balloted on so will not be balloted again. We will commence the next pay talks in January for next year. 

The remaining changes yet to be balloted on by our members are as follows - 

Compensatory Rest Breaks (i.e. you would not need to attend work until 12pm if you were called out after midnight and before 6am)  

We heard that you felt this was a positive change, but some casual colleagues felt this may reduce hours scheduled.   

However, we have been advised this change would create more work overall as the business would always need to schedule additional colleagues. 

A paid break for any colleague who works more than 6 hours a day.  

When talking to members you felt that this was positive.   

You did have questions about how this would work for colleagues who were on the ambulance and Southern Coop acknowledge that greater flexibility of when you take your breaks may be required if carrying out this role.

For those in Lancing it was suggested absorbing standby rotas into the Fratton Support Centre.

A number of members raised concerns about the potential impact this could have during the consultation period. 

As a result, Southern Co-op will be trialling an alternative on-call rota for Lancing, running from 4.30pm – 9.00pm Monday to Friday (excluding weekends and bank holidays).  This will reduce the potential of attendance delays if colleagues were to travel from Portsmouth during peak hours. This will be reviewed in six months' time.

Individual top up payments of 25% (based on current and potential standby and callout earnings for 2022) have also been applied for those impacted by the changes.

Please complete the ballot form below to indicate whether or not you accept this management offer.