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To: National Museums Liverpool Trading company

Stop redundancies at National Museums Liverpool Trading company

PCS union represent workers across National Museums Liverpool and its Trading company and is now launching a public campaign to stop or minimise these proposed redundancies.

We demand that:
• NML Trading immediately pause the redundancy process and engage in a collective consultation as required by law
• NML Trading recognises PCS union immediately for this collective consultation
• NML Trading demonstrates they have explored ALL options to use the Covid government support schemes, including Job Support scheme, furlough options, and local lockdown support scheme to save as many jobs as possible
• NML Trading to provide redundancy compensation to ALL employees if redundancies go ahead, not just those who have more than 2 years service and guarantee a preferential re-employment scheme to those staff once the business picks up pace again in 2021.

Why is this important?

On 5th October, National Museums Liverpool issued a press release announcing that they were considering redundancies across its organisation due to the Covid pandemic. They explained that they would allow employees within the charity arm of the organisation to apply for voluntary redundancy as an initial stage, but compulsory redundancies might take place later, but not before March 2021.

What was not disclosed is that within the commercial arm of the museums (National Museums Liverpool Trading), a process started to make staff compulsory redundant by the first week of November, giving just 4 weeks notice to employees working in cafés, shops and events. This is a kick in the teeth for those staff who returned to work back in July and were deemed as ‘essential workers for the reopening of the museum’.

Staff who are risking their health and possibly their lives to keep the museums and galleries open during a global pandemic are being rewarded with every chance of losing their jobs with very little notice. The Trading Company does not recognise Trade Unions and despite making more than 20 employees redundant, has refused to engage with a collective consultation.

This is unacceptable and morally wrong. In a time when jobs are more scarce than ever, when people on low wages are getting paid less but their bills and rent/mortgages are the same, when there is a backlog of benefit claims as more and more people are laid off, NMLT has chosen to give its staff only 4 weeks to arrange new jobs or other forms of income. Many of the staff will receive little to no redundancy compensation. Staff are also expected to re-apply for their jobs but with less contracted hours and less jobs available.

Liverpool, UK

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Updates

2020-10-21 22:28:09 +0100

500 signatures reached

2020-10-20 17:30:51 +0100

100 signatures reached

2020-10-20 15:53:09 +0100

50 signatures reached

2020-10-20 15:22:25 +0100

25 signatures reached

2020-10-20 15:00:44 +0100

10 signatures reached