Trying To Pull The Wool Over Your Eyes?

SPW is planning to introduce a new contract of employment. It says that it’s not changing any of the legacy terms that transferred from Lloyds Banking Group. However, it is tightening the post termination restrictions and requiring staff to give more notice when they leave.

The HR Director says:

“We are seeking to make the new refreshed contract of employment more straightforward, easier to understand with less legal jargon and a more modern approach”. When an employer says it: “wants to make it easier to understand with less legal jargon” what it usually means is that it wants to make it easier to change things. Invariably, it’s the legal jargon which contains the protections for employees. We are currently reviewing the proposed new contract of employment with our legal advisers to make sure Schroders are not slipping any other changes through the backdoor.

The Legal Position

Let’s be clear before we go any further: the ‘SPW Employee Forum’ – which is an HR created talking shop – has no legal standing. It can’t enter into collective agreements with the employer. It’s a powerless fig leaf designed to undermine the work of proper trade unions.

The only way the current contract of employment can be changed is by either by individual or collective agreement. There is an amendment clause in the harmonised Lloyds contract of employment, but Schroders won’t use that to implement changes.

Members will recall that when the LBG harmonised contract of employment was introduced many years ago that was on the back of a collective agreement reached by Accord and Unite for HBOS staff. This was despite the fact that the vast majority of HBOS staff would have been worse off. We refused to sign a collective agreement and Lloyds had to get every member of staff to sign an individual contract of employment. Tens of thousands refused. Even now there are thousands of staff who are still on their original contracts of employment.

We are afraid that Accord and Unite, who only have a small number of members between them in Schroders, will do what they’ve done previously which is to roll over and agree to whatever changes the SPW wants, getting nothing in return. They’ve done it before.

Post-Termination Restrictions

The current contract of employment contains a clause which sets out the restrictions that will be in place following the termination of employment including redundancy. Whilst those restrictions don’t prevent members from working for a competitor, they do try to stop staff from poaching customers etc. The current restrictions apply as follows:

• For Grades F-G: for a fixed period of 6 months from the date of termination.

• For Grades A-E: for a fixed period of 3 months from the date of termination.

Under SPW’s proposals the restrictive covenant fixed period will be increased to 12 months. Why now? Whilst we can understand that the new restrictive period protects the company’s interests, it doesn’t protect the interests of staff especially when they may be leaving the company through no fault of their own. If an Adviser is made redundant and a customer follows the Adviser to his or her new company after 6 months’, then they could be subject to legal action by SPW. Why should Advisers give up that ability to trade? One could argue that it is the potential for a mass exodus of customers which forces SPW to treat its staff properly in the first place. And more philosophically, customers should be able to decide for themselves which Adviser they want to deal with.

There is also a debate to be had over whether a 12-month restriction would be enforceable anyway and we will deal with that in due course.

And not content with restricting what you can do when you leave, SPW also want to change notice periods. At the moment many staff wanting to leave SPW only have to give 1 month’s notice but under the new proposals that would increase to 3 months’ notice. This is another example of SPW protecting its own interest at the expense of staff.

The proposed “new hybrid working clause”, which is SPW’s carrot for staff agreeing to the changes, is a red herring. Hybrid working benefits SPW as much as it does staff. The proposed new contract says: “You may also work from home in accordance with SPW’s Flexible Policy and as agreed with your line manager in accordance with the needs of the business”. Note the use of the words “and as agreed”. That basically means that SPW can change any hybrid working arrangement whenever it wants to, and staff could do nothing about it. This is not worth the paper it’s written on.

We would like to hear from members about the proposed changes and they can contact us at 24hours@bankaffinity.co.uk. In the meantime, members with any questions can contact the Union’s Bedford Office on 01234 716014.