Kelvin to sue the TGWU
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• The management at Kelvin Central (formerly Central Scottish) is taking the Transport & General Workers Union to court over the bitter strike which has paralysed the Lanarkshire company for four weeks.
The dispute is the subject of arbitration, but whatever happens at ACAS, managing director David McCracken says the TGWU is court-bound. And he looks set to sack 800 strikers who failed to turn up for work this week, despite a final "work or be sacked" ultimatum.
"The strike was called illegally and the T&G leadership officially repudiated the action. The strike is costing us £200,000 every week, which on top of £1.5 million we lost in the last rostering dispute means that the future of the company is at risk," says McCracken. "We feel we have the right to seek damages."
About 710 drivers and 90 cleaners and shunters are on strike, out of a total complement of 1.200. "We have the reserves to pay everybody still at work their full basic wage but cannot do so indefinitely," says McCracken. "The cleaners and shunters are being cruelly used by the strike leaders because the dispute is about drivers' conditions. The cleaners have nothing to gain and everything to lose."
The dispute blew up over the sacking of four shop stewards for "gross misconduct" when whey called a mass meeting to discuss new working conditions (CM 4-10 May).
TGWU Scottish trade group secretary Archie Wilson says the men were thrown out because they held a meeting with Kelvin Scottish union leaders to discuss a possible worker buyout of the two companies in competition with the management-employee bid. Five local Labour MPs now back the worker-buyout.
Local union spokesman Andy Baird is adamant that the strikers will battle on: They might be considering closure, but we will organise a buyout," he says. "At some stage they will have to negotiate".