A ROW between unions and Wirral Council may lead to a strike of home-helps, the council has been told.

Wirral Council is changing its shift patterns for home helps and will impose compulsory redundancies on those who will not sign the new contracts. According to union figures, this will mean up to 300 home-helps being made redundant.

At the moment the home-helps work from 9am until 1pm, but the new shifts will mean them working rotas between 7.30 am and 10.30 pm. Public service workers' union UNISON says that the new system will cause too many problems for those who have other responsibilities.

"This is a slap in the face for some of the lowest paid and hardest working group of council employees. The fact is that most of our home-helps work part-time hours because they are caring for another family member for the rest of the day. They simply cannot work the proposed rotas which this council wants to force them into," said Wirral Branch Secretary Derek Jenkins.

A branch committee of the union voted unanimously to ballot its members for strike action.

A spokesman for UNISON said: "Our policy is that if any of our members are threatened with compulsory redundancies we have to act. If the council lifts this threat, we will work with them and try to help bring the new systems in."

Director of Social Services Kevin Miller said that the council has no choice but to introduce the more flexible shifts because the demands on home-helps have changed.

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