Last week’s announcement that AXA have formed a project team to explore how it delivers travel insurance in the future, potentially combining its UK operation with AXA Partners came out of the blue, with the company not have commenced consultation on the issue.

At this stage we are waiting for the company to provide more detail on its ideas so we can consider them and challenge as appropriate.

Given the lack of information we have received from AXA so far, we are not in a position to answer any questions or address any concerns you might have at this point, however we would ask you to speak to your local Unite in AXA rep about any issues you have and we will collate these and get back to members as soon as we can.

The result of the second 2019 Northern Ireland pay ballot is as follows:

For: 78%
Against: 22%
Spoilt: 0%

We have communicated the result to the company.

Thank you to everyone who voted and the local workplace reps for the hard work they put in running the ballot.

Following the rejection of AXA’s pay offer for staff in Northern Ireland in the recent pay ballot we re-engaged with management to try and come up with a proposition that our members would find acceptable.

Feedback from you overwhelmingly focused on the inequities in terms and conditions, especially those in the Derry Service Centre and the rest of Northern Ireland. Whilst the company had indicated a willingness to engage on this later in the year, it was clear to us that you wanted to see some progress now.

After further negotiations with AXA yesterday, we are pleased to advise that they have agreed to the following as part of their 2019 pay offer:

1. Under the company sick pay scheme, absence will now be paid at full pay once length of service requirements have been completed. This means that the first three days will no longer be unpaid nor days four and five only paid at the statutory sick pay rate.
2. Terms and conditions review negotiations for Northern Ireland will commence in October of this year.

Unite in AXA are pleased with the improvements that have been offered as this will have an immediate benefit for a large number of members and feel that, combined with the increased pay spend in Northern Ireland of 3%, this revised offer is one we can recommend to members to accept as the best that can be achieved through negotiation.

Unite will ballot members across Northern Ireland the week commencing 3^rdJune 2019.

The result of the 2019 Northern Ireland pay ballot is as follows:

For: 37%
Against: 63%
Spoilt: 0%

We have communicated the result to the company and are now looking to re-engage with them.

Thank you to everyone who voted and the local workplace reps for the hard work they put in running the ballot.

Earlier in the year we raised the issue of banked legacy redundancy times for employees originally employed by Prospero that were worse than the harmonised redundancy terms with the company. The effect of this is that members of this population could, on average, receive £7000 less redundancy pay than if it all been calculated on current AXA terms.

We are pleased to advise that after negotiations, AXA Insurance have agreed to remove any banking that is worse than the harmonised than the current terms, so over one hundred members of staff who initially started work for Prospero or Sims have had their redundancy pay terms improved by several thousand pounds in the unfortunate case that they are made redundant.

The company announced today changes to the AXA Insurance Claims structure and organisation. The main impact of the reorganisation falls outside the Unite bargaining unit, but there is some impact across a number of Claims sites that does affect a small number of members.

If you have been impacted by these changes or put at risk of redundancy please contact your local Unite in AXA report for support.

Whilst staff on the Claims Development Framework fall outside the annual pay review, Unite in AXA did include an element pertaining to them in the 2019 pay claim.

We were concerned that, for a variety of reasons, a number of staff on the Framework had not received any pay rise for a number of years, despite their performance being rated as Satisfactory or higher for performance management (which if they had been on the normal performance related pay matrix would have seen them receive pay rises). With this in mind we requested that any employee on the framework who had not received a pay rise in the previous three or more reviews, and had a performance management rating of Satisfactory or higher, receive a pay rise this year.

After reviewing the Development Framework population AXA Insurance Claims have agreed to do this and eighteen employees will now see their pay increased this month when they otherwise would not have.

AXA’s announcement today in respect of changes to its Commercial Lines Intermediary operation comes with the disappointing news that 106 jobs have been put at risk as part of the process. Unite has been involved in ongoing consultation with the company about the changes and is confident that many staff who have been put at risk will be able to be relocated into new roles and the number of redundancies will be much reduced. We do appreciate however that being put at risk is not nice and would encourage members to engage with their local reps on issues of concern. If you do not have a Unite rep in your branch, please look at the list of reps here see who to contact.

Based on a 72% return of ballot papers issued, the result of the 2018 pay ballot is as follows:

For: 71%
Against: 29%
Spoilt: 0%

We have communicated this to the company…

Thank you to everyone who voted and the local workplace reps for the hard work they put in running the ballot.

Unite in AXA have approached the company with a view to addressing the banked redundancy terms anomaly affecting ex-Prospero/AXA Direct staff. When AXA Insurance terms and conditions where harmonised in 2001 for staff from the various companies including Guardian, Provincial and Prospero, the banking of redundancy terms, a move taken to protect previously earned benefits, resulted in the small ex-Prospero/AXA Direct  population banking redundancy terms worse than those going forward.

We have opened discussions with AXA Insurance about removing this anomaly to ensure this small group of employees do not continue to be penalised for having an employment history different than the majority of their colleagues.