The long-running dispute between Goodlord and members of staff facing wage cuts has ended with nine workers having their employment ended by the company as they did not come back to work after the 12-week period.
Up to 20 people employed in Goodlord’s London-based referencing department, which provides tenant checks for a number of agents, undertook strike action in February in a row over pay.
The disgruntled employees instructed Unite the Union to act on their behalf, claiming that they were subject to ‘fire and rehire’ plans – a claim that Goodlord deny.
Goodlord’s now former referencing staff say that their pay would have dropped from £24,000 to £18,000, which is less than the London living wage of £21,157, while their maternity, holiday and sick pay would also be cut. But Goodlord believe that they should now only be required to pay UK real living wage, despite the fact that the workers are based in the capital.
Unite lobbied on behalf of its members facing wage cuts at Goodlord by calling on the Living Wage Foundation to end its accreditation of the London-based lettings software provider.
Following extensive negotiations with the employees, Unite the Union and ACAS, Goodlord has been unable to reach a resolution with the nine team members involved in the recent dispute.
As the strike has now lasted for more than 12 weeks, a resolution has not been found, and the nine people involved in the dispute have opted not to return to work, and will therefore be leaving the business.
A statement from Goodlord: “Despite months of negotiations and after multiple attempts to reach a resolution, it’s with a heavy heart that we announce that the nine people involved in the recent strike action have left the business.
“During the strike we held conciliation talks via ACAS where we explored every possible way of reaching a resolution. Our colleagues were offered a range of options to bring this dispute to an end. Unfortunately, none of the options put forward were taken up by these nine individuals, who instead indicated an intention to continue indefinite strike action. We believe our team has now exhausted all possible options for resolution and, as these colleagues weren’t prepared to return to work, we have had to take the extremely difficult decision to end their employment.
“The whole company is deeply saddened by this. Our objective from day one was to provide stable, permanent jobs for each of our much valued employees and it’s heartbreaking that our commitment to resolving this dispute collaboratively has not resulted in a more positive outcome. However, we do believe that this is now the only way for everyone involved to move forward. We wish our nine former colleagues the very best of luck in their next roles.”
Property Industry Eye has contacted Unite for a comment.
Is this acceptable? I am surprised that GL have continued with their wage cut campaign, isn’t this the busiest market we have seen for years?
If GL is having to cut salaries rather than make more redundancies it suggests that their business model doesn’t work and that they can’t deliver the service for the price they charge their customers. It’s a shame their staff are having to pay the price of this strategy … literally.
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I wonder if Craig Crook owns GL …
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Priceless!
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Best of luck to the brave employees walking away.
If you are an agent using this company, maybe think if you should still be supporting them.
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“Explored every option?” What total rubbish. What about the option of paying them the London minimum wage? Goodlord come out of this badly.
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Agents using Goodlord must now demand an equivalent fee reduction. If GL won’t agree then it might be time for this company to leave your service. Don”t forget to wish it well as you close the door! Where is the employee / union comment to make this a balanced report?
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This is shocking, in my view. Many can’t survive on the ‘London Living Wage’ outside of London, let alone in it, and they were expecting a lot less to be acceptable! And what happened to paying people what they’re worth? I daresay this company were hoping to reduce salaries, yet still expect a higher salaried level of output and commitment. Look after your people and they’ll look after you.
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Begs the question, Why would an outsourcing company set up and operate in London? No wonder they can’t make ends meet. Their principal resource is their staff and if they’re doing this to them, then agent clients should, right now, be re-evaluating their own transfer risk of outsourcing to this lot. For me any independent letting agent who outsources their core management responsibilities to GL et al, is no longer in control of their business and are doing a disservice to their landlords.
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Ego! there is a belief that being in London means the service and product is better. A London HQ gives a perceived weight to a company. Networking is certainly easier but at an operational level the service will struggle to compete with firms 45 minutes by train North of Kings Cross where staff can do the same job, for the same customer base and be paid the same but have a much more affordable cost of living and quality of life.
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A very sad story to read from what was one of the “good ones”. Maybe agents need to think twice (at least on a moralistic level) before adopting this tech.
I’d love to see how much both the C & D suite took away last year!
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I’m not sure that the closing statement in Goodlord’s email this morning of “We expect Unite to fabricate and promote misinformation around the situation” was the best move in their attempt to protect their reputation and re-assure customers of their strong moral fibre.
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I can’t understand why any agents use third party referencing companies? not fit for purpose when you can do it directly yourself and get better results.
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I’ll leave aside the fact that any company thats raised tens of millions of pounds shouldn’t need to cut pay to £18k a year and question why nine experienced employees and a ton of negative press have been endured to save £42,000 a year.
I don’t think this will materially affect Goodlord and no agents will walk but it does seem really badly handled from idea to execution.
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