It’s been just forty days since six Boots pharmacists lodged a historic application with the government’s Central Arbitration Committee (CAC). This action aims to end their employer’s agreement with the BPA, a non-independent staff association, in order to allow representation by the 27,000-strong PDA Union, the only independent trade union in the UK run by pharmacists, exclusively for pharmacists, pre-registration graduates and pharmacy students.
At the height of the holiday period with pharmacists busy with work and home life, many hard-working pharmacists are not even aware of the process yet, so passing the 1000 pledges milestone is a very significant achievement in such a brief time. This level of popular support amongst Boots employees is a significant boost to the derecognition application and a huge vote of confidence for the six applicants who launched the process to benefit their colleagues.
Further evidence has been submitted to the CAC in support of the derecognition application. Boots and the BPA will have until noon on 19th September to comment on this evidence, with any final submissions from the Applicants in response, to be received by 5pm on 22nd September 2017. The next step in the process is for a CAC panel to review the evidence and decide whether to order a secret ballot of all pharmacists and pre-registration graduates at Boots, where they will be able to vote for their choice, in a process similar to a referendum.
Mark Pitt, PDA Union’s Assistant General Secretary said “It’s not just the numbers, but also the gathering strength of support that this application is receiving, which demonstrates how Boots pharmacists clearly want their employment situation to be improved through the recognition of an independent trade union. BPA members and pharmacists not in any union are amongst those pledging their support for the derecognition of the BPA. Boots claims their agreement with the BPA covers over 7,000 pharmacists, so the application needed 710 pledges of support (10% of the total). We’ve already had over 1,000 individual pledges of support, with more arriving each day.”
Mark Pitt concluded:
“The company could choose to respect the views of pharmacists and begin working with us now to improve working conditions, so that together management and employees can make Boots a better place. Sadly, it seems senior management would rather keep resisting that change and instead are working closely with the BPA to try and defeat the growing consensus for change. This gives a negative message to pharmacists about how their opinions are regarded by those who make the decisions. We hope they eventually see sense.”
You can read about the whole story here: http://www.pdaurecognition.co.uk/about/
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