NUR climbdown on pay strings
Socialist Press1980 1980-05-07Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 10 →
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Railwaymen's leader Sid Weighell breathed again last week as the NUR Executive voted 25-3 to accept a marginally rejigged sell-out pay-with-strings deal.
A few days earlier Weighell had been heavily defeated in an attempt to win support for the two-stage 20% pay offer, for which he had already publicly pledged acceptance.
Installments At issue was the fact that the new money was to be paid in two instalments-16% and 14%-and tied to a savage series of changes in working practices which threaten to wipe out thousands of jobs in the freight, •Parcels and administration sectors.
British Rail management stood firm on the strings, but readily agreed to pay the whole increase in one stage-at a total increased cost of only £120,000 on the £220 million deal!
This "concession" linked to the relatively high level of the cash settlement, was enough to swing the 21-6 NUR Executive vote for rejection to the 25-3 vote for acceptance.
The agreement excludes compulsory redundancies. But it is clear that the thousands of existing "vacancies" will never be filled if the deal is implemented while management steadily whittle away the numbers of jobs available on the railways.
As the impact of the changes working practices-so readily Weighell accepted by their leadersmakes itself felt on the shop floor workforce this pay deal will go down as a r ajor landmark of betrayal.