Your Questions Answered?

Dear Colleagues,

Yesterday evening (Friday) ITN announced "drop in sessions" next week where you will be able to put your questions about the Pay Deal in 2008/9. Listed below are questions, some of which we have tried to get answers to, that you might want to ask:

* An RPI increase in pay is a cost of living increase, in addition to tax on the taxi journeys, everything else I pay for will cost more. Why is a cost of living increase being presented as a real terms pay rise?
* The examples you give on the intranet suggest that I will pay tax on taxi journeys, and be financially better off -- will this be true in my particular case?
* Last year more than two dozen staff were made redundant, we have also begun to be charged for personal calls on work mobiles and year-on-year we have been asked to make various savings. Why are even more savings necessary now to run the business?
* Why is it necessary to cut the recovery time for working overnight by a day?
* Why is it necessary for me to make myself available to work more weekends?
* Why is it fair that when the company asks me to work "on the road", often to remote and out of the way places, I should not be allowed to claim my first meal?
* Why is night allowance paid to staff who work in the office, but not to staff "on the road" -- often in dangerous and remote places?
* How many "ITN days" will I be able to work -- and what will I earn for them?
* What other non-staff savings did the company try to make before asking us for savings?

During the sessions you will no doubt be told that in December the Unions agreed to make savings of £300,00 as part of a two year deal. This is not the case, we agreed to enter discussions about savings in December as part of a two year deal (which is what we are trying to do now) and never agreed the amount. If anyone is interested, I can provide the documents that prove it.

For all the latest information visit the ITN Unions blog site: http://itnnujbectu.blogspot.com/