In this section, the CSP outlines how you can organise members when it comes to on-call issues.
Campaigning around on-call
The current national principles allow for flexibility for organisations to meet local needs. This is where discrepancies arise relating to on-call including rates of pay, compensatory rest and TOIL.
You may wish to campaign around on-call if the current arrangements are inequitable, causing stress or if management impose changes. Staff must be consulted when their working arrangements are changed.
Campaigning around on-call as a CSP member
If there are CSP reps in your workplace, work with them on this campaign. They will need active members like you to get the campaign off the ground!
If there are no CSP reps, you can build a campaign with a small group of active members. You can do this following the steps outlined below for CSP stewards.
Campaigning around on-call as a CSP rep
The first step is to identify active members who will support your campaign activities. You can identify these people through your existing connections, but also by surveying the membership.
Questions in your survey should consider:
- Impact on staff wellbeing
- Equality impact assessment
- Health and safety risk assessment
- Impact on caring duties and family life
- Whether staff are looking for alternative roles and workplaces
- Whether staff have opinions on a preferred on-call arrangement
This survey will be designed to collect data from members to ascertain how the current or proposed on-call arrangements will impact them. The purpose is to provide evidence when communicating with management.
Importantly, your survey must ask if staff would be prepared to support your campaign, provide testimony about the on-call issues, and join with your CSP rep team to work on this campaign.
This way, you can build your campaign team. Do not go ahead with a campaign that members aren’t keen to support, your role is to represent the membership.
Once your survey results are in, reach out to the members who will support your campaign and arrange a meeting. At this meeting, agree on a timeline for the campaign, including points at which to escalate your activities.
It is helpful to understand whether local employers, or those delivering similar services, have favourable on-call arrangements. Contact other reps in your region, and your local CSP staff team, to find out if they are aware of best practice examples.
How to campaign on the issue
Hold a members meeting to understand how the members feel about the issue, what their concerns are, how strongly they feel about it and to help organise the response.
Survey members to collect qualitative and quantitative data about the issue. This will help inform you how big of an issue it is, what people maybe willing to do about it and also what data you have to support your arguments with managers.
Organise a meeting with the manager to discuss the issues and findings of the survey. You may wish to take along some influential members to this meeting.
If you feel that management aren’t listening or acting on your concerns you could consider escalating the campaign. You could do this through:
- Developing an online petition to represent a widespread view of the issue at hand
- Consider other types of petition such as a photo petition. For example, you could photograph all the individuals who have concerns holding up a placard with a sentence on why it is an issue for them. Creating a collage or a video of these photos can be a powerful way to demonstrate a strength of feeling.
- Counter signatures from members on a formal letter outlining the issues
You also have the organisation’s grievance processes you can use, individual or collective. You may use the above tactics as before, after or as part of a grievance process.
Advice for reps:
An organising top tip
If you are struggling with campaign ideas, have a look at the Social Change Grid and make sure you are utilising a mix of tactics and reaching the various stakeholders who will sway the eventual decision.
- It is important as a CSP rep, you are familiar with your employer’s on-call policy so you can support members who are affected by it. Use your networks to become aware of other countries and regions on-call policies, so you have an idea of how your own policy stacks up against others.
- It is good practice to hold regular member meetings so you can stay informed on the challenges members are facing at work. If it becomes clear that there is an issue with on-call, you may wish to organise your members to campaign around this.
- Trade unions achieve for their members through the power of collective action and by showing strength in numbers. Recruiting new members to the CSP is one of the responsibilities of our reps, and campaigns can often attract the attention of prospective members who are affected by the campaign issue. As such, reps can focus their recruitment efforts around an on-call campaign to grow the strength of the union and help to achieve a desirable outcome for members.
- Safety reps should ensure that organisations are putting in safe working practices for those who carry out on-call duties. This will likely include carrying out risk assessments, managing stress at work, if frequency is high for example, and applying appropriate lone working practices.
- Equality reps should ensure equality impact assessments are being carried out for staff who are asked to work on-call, both for individuals, e.g. during pregnancy, and for whole groups of staff, e.g. where the pool of staff is small so individuals are required to be on the on-call rota more often.
- Share the outcomes of any campaigns, and of any 'workplace wins' around improvements to on-call policies via our workplace wins survey so that we can start to form a picture of where there has been positive change, and where there may still be work to do around various parts of the country.
On-call is hot topic in many workplaces. Stewards, health and safety reps and equality reps should be aware of the issues and difficulties that members are experiencing as a result of on-call and be prepared to campaign on the issue if necessary. The above will help guide the local CSP team in organising and running an effective campaign on this issue.
