Talks go on
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TALKS between Roadline management and trades union representatives over the troubled parcels company's job-cutting survival plan (CM, February 9) are expected to run into next month.
Discussions are being held at local level over the proposal, by the National Freight Consortium's loss-making parcels group, for a cut of between 800 and 1,000 jobs at Roadline. According to Transport and General Workers Union officer John Moore, the survival plan could cut Roadline's workforce by between a quarter and a third. Opposition is building up and could well be a cause of controversy at next weekend's NFC annual general meeting at Harrogate.
The plan calls for the closure of branches at Basingstoke, Bermondsey (South London), Brighton, Carmarthen, Chelmsford, Plymouth, Sheffield and Southend, with driver-only outstations being preserved in some of these areas.
In addition, the branches at Coventry and Wolverhampton would close in the survival plan and a new branch is planned for Birmingham.
National Carriers Parcels, the smaller NFC partner in the parcels group, spent E500,000 five years ago automating its Lawley Street parcels branch in Birmingham.
That was intended to be the first of a network of such depots, but NFC continues to expound the virtues of manual handling of parcels at its branches and believes the Birmingham operation is no more efficient than its unsophisticated partners.
The planned Roadline branch in Birminghan. would be run as a discrete operation, employees have been assured.
• Scottish Road Services is to close its branch at Alloa. Prolonged trading losses due to extreme competition and rising costs are blamed.
Two thirds of the 43 employees at Alloa are likely to be offered other jobs, the company said last week.