Bargaining and negotiating

Reps and branch officers can develop their bargaining and negotiating skills with courses designed to enhance knowledge and improve confidence in dealings with management.

Team negotiating skills

This course is aimed at UNISON representatives who are involved in negotiations or who are likely to become involved in negotiations with management. 

This course will help participants to: 

  • develop and practice negotiating skills 
  • be more effective team negotiators 
  • understand the process of negotiating 
  • be familiar with different styles of negotiating 
  • understand how to prepare, present and negotiate on a claim 
  • develop good practice in negotiations 

Procurement

The aims of this two-day course are for participants to:

  • Understand the stages of procurement.
  • Examine the potential effects on members and the branch.
  • Build knowledge of how effective organising can be used to influence outcomes before, during and after the formal procurement process.

Dealing with reorganisation

This course focuses on developing and negotiating agreements to deal with re-organisations and representing members with problems that arise throughout the re-organisation process. It covers:

  • contracts of employment
  • employment law and service reorganisation
  • TUPE
  • consultation
  • involving members

Introduction to job evaluation

This course is designed for UNISON school reps, members of the regional schools forum and branch negotiators.

The aims of the course are to

  • introduce the basics about what is job evaluation
  • think about job descriptions and national role profiles
  • understand issues about the working week and the working year
  • discuss other issues – eg where people have more than one job
  • introduce the national framework and UNISON’s role in this
  • identify what is locally and what is nationally negotiated
  • think about how to match existing roles in schools to jobs
  • identify organising and other priorities for school support staff and branches in the run up to the implementation of the Framework agreement.

Handling basic pensions enquiries

This short course aims to enable participants to:

  • understand the difference between Defined Benefit and Defined Contribution schemes
  • work out pension entitlements
  • understand the state pension
  • make a comparison between different schemes and entitlements both in the public and private sectors
  • deal with members’ pensions queries

Introduction to equal pay

This course aims to give an introduction to:

  • the gender pay gap and its causes
  • the concept of equal pay for equal work
  • the link between equal pay and job evaluation
  • how employers defend equal pay claims
  • discrimination in pay structures (with a focus on gender)
  • equal pay audits and equality impact assessment
  • UNISON’s Equal Pay strategy

 

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Photo © Jess Hurd/reportdigital.co.uk