Back to square one for parcels re-jig?
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• The National Freight Corporation's plans to reorganize State-owned parcels services received a rude — though not unpredictable — shock on Tuesday, when a delegate conference of BRS Parcels workers unanimously instructed their union officials to reject the proposals.
The NFC aims to develop BRS Parcels Ltd services for high-speed route specialization while National Carriers Ltd will tackle the market segment for a national small freight service.
There was, I understand, writes John Darker, talk at the delegate conference of 3000 redundancies but this figure is discounted by one well-informed source as far as BRS Parcels Ltd is concerned; it possibly relates to the overall redundancies within the State parcels set-up within a two-year period. In calling for an end to reorganization talks "until NCL puts its house in order" the road transport unions are saying in effect to the National Union of Railwaymen — who organize many of the drivers in NCL — that they must seek their own salvation. The TGWU and URTU have said many times that they do not intend their members to be sacrificed on the altar of NCL.
With a mass lobby of trade unionists protesting to the House of Commons this week, the Government may not be over-eager to instruct the NFC to proceed with their plans regardless of union attitudes. BRS Parcels management, well on the way to achieving a profit of £2m this year, are unlikely to shed many tears over this latest turn of the NFC's creaking prayer-wheel. I gather that their relations with the unions have never been better.