UNISON Says Camden Council's Pay Review Is 'Institutionally Racist'

Camden Town Hall (Photo by Camden Photos)

About a year ago, Camden Council decided to link its employees' pay to their performances. The review was part of the “Camden Plan”, an initiative aimed not just at cutting costs, but at tackling inequality and ensuring that the North London borough is a “place where everyone has a chance to succeed and where nobody gets left behind”.

Which sounds just lovely. But the results didn’t really pan out that way, at least for the council's own workforce. According to a draft report prepared by trade union UNISON and seen by VICE, white workers are far more likely to have their pay increased than black and Asian workers. As well as that, those who already earn large salaries are more likely to benefit from the scheme than those being paid peanuts.

White workers were found to be four and a half times more likely than black workers to receive the top performance ratings – and therefore a nice pay rise of up to £3,400. Asian workers were also less likely to get top marks than whites.

The council workers’ union, Camden UNISON, is understandably aggrieved about this. They branded the pay review as “institutionally racist”. Which is a pretty strong diss to a council that said it was setting out to make things more equal.

According to UNISON, the review is also being "used to boost the pay of senior managers at the expense of the low-paid". The highest paid staff at the council were found to be nearly 13 times more likely to receive high performance ratings than the lowest paid. The fact that the council is run by the Labour Party – who, you'd think, might have an interest in making things more equal – is the shitty icing on an already crappy cake.

The scheme, called Performance Related Pay (PRP), is common in the private sector, although it's increasingly being used by public sector employers. It works by giving each individual staff member a rating from 1 to 5. It’s pretty self-explanatory but for those of you who have never read a film review: 1 is poor and 5 is exceptional. The higher workers scored, the greater the pay rises they would receive. Workers who got the lowest scores miss out completely. The idea is to help motivate employees. Schools have been able to tether teachers' salaries to PRP since September last year. Similar schemes in the NHS have also been met with allegations of structural racism.

Thanks to the threat of a Camden UNISON strike, the council have already agreed to give those who got 1 or 2 star ratings a cost of living pay increase – but that is capped at 1 percent, which is below inflation, and so basically a pay cut in real terms.

The figures obtained by the union reveal that 16.1 percent of black workers received top ratings, compared with 31.5 percent of white workers. Asian workers were also less likely to be rated as highly performing, with only 24.8 percent getting top marks.

While less likely to get the top ratings and accompanying pay boosts, workers from ethnic minorities were also most likely to be rated as under-performing. Black and Asian workers were 41 percent and 25 percent more likely, respectively, to be rated as under-performing than their white colleagues.

Hugo Pierre – a member of Camden Black Workers Group, which represents ethnic minority workers on the council – said: "Black and minority ethnic workers and lower graded workers can demonstrate they work very hard for this council, but the new assessment method makes it easier for managers to assess them on the basis that their face doesn’t fit. Camden doesn’t value ‘face-to-face’ work and rewards the higher paid at their expense – institutional discrimination is bound to be a result.”

I picked up the phone to George Binette, the Branch secretary for Camden UNISON. “Union representatives argued strenuously but in the end unsuccessfully with management against introducing PRP on both principled and practical grounds," he told me. "The figures from 2013 seem to confirm our fears, not least in terms of PRP widening the gap between senior managers and front-line staff.”

Before you get too upset, the pay review wasn’t bad for everyone. If you were already well paid, you’re likely to be paid even better. Half the people earning over £60,000 per year were deemed to be performing “high” or better, attracting increases of at least £2,300 per year. To compare, only 3.9 percent of the lower-paid – people who scrape by on less than £20,000 per year, such as state caretakers or transport escorts for the elderly and disabled – were deemed as performing high or better.

As well as apparently discriminating and making things less equal, a UNISON representative told me about a number of other gripes. One worker was told he would've received a 3 rating but was downgraded to 2 because he was sick for five months. An IT worker was told he had exceeded most of his objectives, was awarded a 4, and asked his manager what he could do to get a 5. The manager responded that it would be "basically impossible". Other workers are unhappy that they aren’t rated by their line manager, but by more senior bosses who don’t really know what they do.

A former worker for the council, who wanted to remain anonymous, told me how she lost out under PRP. “The process wasn’t explained to me properly. I was told that we would have a meeting to discuss it and would decide on what grade I would be given. But I wasn’t told anything and a few months later I was told I received a 2 and there was no discussion about it, no opportunity for me to give my views.

"No feedback was provided. My other colleagues didn’t receive a freeze. They were a different race to me. I had to ask them for information about the process because I wasn’t receiving any."

The worker eventually left Camden Council, believing she had been unfairly hurried out of the door with her ill-health as an excuse. She said the experience affected her, “Dramatically. I’m finally getting back on my feet now. For a while, I had to see a counsellor. Where I am [in my new job] I’m totally fine, none of those issues are taking place at all. It really is a management issue. People are able to bring their personal views and feelings into the workplace. It gives them the power to do that and I don’t agree with it. It was, in effect, bullying in the workplace. I could have easily had a breakdown.”

VICE has contacted Camden Council and is waiting on a response.

PRP was already controversial at the council and is deeply unpopular among staff, with 81 percent strongly in favour of abolishing the system, according to a survey conducted by UNISON. But the council have managed to get a majority of the workforce onto the scheme by applying it to new starters and workers who changed jobs or had their teams restructured. They even offered some workers a thousand pounds to sign up to the scheme, a move the union described as bribery.

All in all, Camden’s attempt to make things more equal seems to have achieved pretty much the exact opposite. Good job, guys.

@jdpoulter

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