CJWU - UPDATE!!
Recruitment of Full-time employed representatives
The CJWU are proud to announce as from today, 31st of July, we now have two full-time, paid for by you, representatives that will be available to actively represent members for any formal matters with their respective employers in the Criminal Justice Sector. This is a mammoth step forward in our ability to offer the very best service to our members.
Employing staff to fulfil members representational needs, we believe, is one of the best ways to develop our union structure. By employing reps we are able to offer totally independent from the employer representation, support for our fantastic local branch officials through training and assisting with any representational needs, and full representational services to those members at sites where we are yet to establish local officials to support our network of members.
ACAS, the public body that oversees employment related issues and issues guidance that the court assess tribunal claims against, recognises that paid representative employees of unions can support members in any workplace, which means there will be no argument as to their status during formal meetings with managers.
If you want to get in contact for any representational needs please email [email protected] in the first instance.
General Secretary vacancy
We now have a vacancy for the General Secretaries position within the CJWU, and will shortly be announcing the timetable for the election process to elect a new General Secretary.
Structure
The employment of full-time reps will allow the executive committee focus on furthering the development of the union. As we expand so we will look to employ additional dedicated representatives to support our structure and ensure our members are adequately supported.
We are always looking for new committed branch officials, if you are interested in joining our team, we can offer full independent training via our partners the UWU, just contact [email protected]
Communication
It is fair to say that in recent months the CJWU’s communication has not been as regular as we would have liked. With the employment of two representatives the Executive committee feel that this will free them up from a lot of the work they were completing to ensure communication improves significantly. The employed reps similarly will be tasked with communicating with members via regular information notices.
Recognition
The CJWU executive committee have been holding talks with employers about possible recognition agreements, and in some workplaces where we hold the significant membership numbers, but where a ‘sweetheart’ agreement for the current voluntary recognised trade union exists we will soon be encouring our members to petition their employer to recognise our union…this will be following the .gov published guidance on how this process works, further updates will follow.
Finance and membership
The CJWU has continued to see new members daily joining our family. We have majority membership numbers in many workplaces, all for the very reasonable monthly payment of £7.50.
The CJWU’s finances have continued to strengthen throughout 2023 which as allowed us to take the decision to fund two full-time employed representatives, we hope this decisions will support our membership to grow further and continue to offer criminal justice sector workers the very best in representation when needed.
Legal
The CJWU have actively funded members legal issues throughout the last three years and have reached many success outcomes for members, some we cannot publicly promote due to out of court settlements, some may not fully be seen for the great work that was achieved by our legal team as the result was just damage limitation, but we are working with our legal team more now than ever before to fully support our members and are using your union subscriptions fairly as our members would expect.
It’s true to say that we have seen some falsehoods posted on social media claiming that we have not supported our members. I would like to make it clear that all members that submit a valid claim, I.e. we’re paying members at the time of their complaint arising, have had their claim referred to our legal team to advise on prospects of success, and from there the EC are advised as to whether to fully fund a claim or not. We have always made it clear, part of the application process, that we can only fund cases where issues arise during your membership of the union. We have had instances where people have joined a month prior to submitting a claim that when assessed buy the legal team reveals they are claiming for something that happened 18 months ago, we will not fund these cases as it is unfair to those paying members who have remained loyal.
Thank you for taking the time to read!!