Parcelforce strike threa
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• Parcelforce is threatened with strike action after union leaders rejected a final wage offer of 496 and lump sum payments totalling 2210.
The Union of Communication Workers will ballot its 11,000 Parcelforce members with a recommendation to reject the offer — the next step could be industrial action.
The offer is in three parts: a lump sum of £150 in December, 4% on basic wages from January, and a further sum of £60 in June.
Parcelforce also wants to postpone the date for the next wage review from July 1992 to January 1993.
Parcelforce will now try to persuade employees to accept the deal after three days of talks with the UCW ended in a "mood of disappointment", according to personnel director Tom Clay.
"At the end we were fairly close", says Clay. "Both sides tried pretty hard." He believes the 4% salary offer will be in line with inflation by January. The previous time the two sides met, on 27 August, Parcelforce had refused to budge from its offer of £280 to be paid in two stages. The latest deal goes some way to meet the union's demand for a mixture of cash and salary increase.
UCW general-secretary Alan Tuffin, says: "Strike action is now a possibility as the offer that Parcelforce has put on the table is simply not good enough. Our members will be very disappointed and we are recommending they reject it. If Parcelforce cannot come up with anything better we may invoke Rule 19, which will call for strike action," he says. The union says its members cannot be blamed for Parcelforce's economic problems. El Parcelforce managing director Peter Howarth has commissioned business consultant McKinsey to advise the company on strategy. It will present a report in November. Howarth denies privatisation is "on the agenda".
The company has spent £2m on Cabcom, in-cab communications equipment for vehicles on time-guaranteed services.