UPDATED EVERY
FRIDAY
Last Update:
Friday 30th September, 2005
 
PUBLICATION
By MAIRI MACDONALD
  
ISLINGTON
WEST END EXTRA
 
SECTIONS
MUSIC
THEATRE
RESTAURANTS
HEALTH
 
NAVIGATION


With Google
 
 
 
‘THEY WERE PAYING ME A PITTANCE’

Union backs pensioner in row over voting form deliveries

A PENSIONER employed to hand deliver voting forms for next year’s council elections pulled out half way through after finding she was being paid less than the minimum wage.
Now Ann Ashley, 73, of the Peabody Estate, Abbey Orchard Street, Victoria, is furious that Westminster Council has refused to pay her anything for delivering electoral registration forms to 585 addresses in Victoria.
The head of Unison in Westminster Rahul Patel attacked the council for failing to pay canvassers and is seeking legal advice to find out if their “ambiguous” pay structure stands up in law.
Mr Patel said: “Westminster has been using cheap labour and has been fairly exploitative in extracting labour in this way. It has had problems before in retrieving information about electoral registration and it seems hardly surprising when people are treated like that.”
But the council has argued it made it clear canvassers would not be paid a penny unless the three-fold requirements of the job were completed “to a satisfactory level”. Mr Patel added: “When people are employed to deliver the forms they are warned it can be arduous work but the reality is that what people are told is disproportionate to the work they actually have to do.
“People are being exploited and we are seeking legal advice for a union member who has ended up in a similar situation to Ms Ashley. We are not sure that the council are fulfilling what they say and the descriptions of payment are certainly ambiguous.”
Ms Ashley (pictured) was employed after seeing an advert in a library for canvassers. She believed she would be paid £8 for a training day and was supplied with three boxes of electoral registration forms and given a week to deliver them from August 12.
Then on September 9 the second stage began in which canvassers had six weeks to make visits to addresses to collect signed forms from people who had not responded. In the final stage, beginning in November, remaining canvassers will have to deliver final reminders and collect the remaining signatures.
Canvassers are paid 15p for each form delivered and were told they would get £1 for every signed form. But three weeks later retrieving signed forms proved harder than expected and after a week she only had 12. Mrs Ashley decided to resign finding the work exhausting, time consuming and badly paid.
Mrs Ashley said: “ I was told to deliver to Vincent Square and some of Vauxhall Bridge Road but trying to get access to some of these properties is near on impossible.
“You are even supposed to get signatures for some people not registered on the electoral roll and many people just refuse to sign them, tell you they have already posted them, lost them or acknowledged them by the internet. But the officials say you still need to go back and get their signature.
“Hours of work going back and forth, up and down stairs and for less than minimum wage just was not worth it and I resigned.”
She claimed the council owes her more than £100 in unpaid wages since the electoral registration officer did not stipulate there would be no payment unless the full job was completed.
Ms Ashley said she put in a few hours a day for 10 days.
A spokesman said: “This woman was taken aside at the briefing and specifically asked if she was confident she could do the job. It was made very clear that if the job was not completed to a satisfactory standard they would not get paid.
“As far as Westminster is concerned this was made very clear from the outset.
“In this case, her age and ability were absolutely taken into consideration and she was given an area that made the job easier for her.”
This was the first year the council advertised the posts for canvassers publicly. A spokeswoman for the Electoral Commission said it was “up to local authorities to manage the process”.
She would not comment on the effect of canvassing methods on overall voting registration numbers, despite heading up a campaign encouraging people to register.



Look for vintage not barcode

FULL STORY...

... and another thing....

Typical isn’t it? You leave the country for a few days and when you get back everything you thought you knew is wrong.
FULL STORY...

   
   
 
All content © New Journal Enterprises, 2005