NEC courts sta
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VIAJOR DRIVE for new employee shareholders is being launched the National Freight Consortium, but it is still being opposed by • i Transport and General Workers Union.
t is offering up to 600,000 60 shares exclusively to nonireholding employees of NEC, ! employee/management/ lsioner venture which bought National Freight Company m the Government in Febry 1982, and has revived a n offer to encourage a high e-up.
ks. in 1982, when the Consorti's management team was en rWO-WEEK strike at Esso's st London terminal near ithrow Airport has ended h drivers returning to work lier this week.
he strike was restricted -to one terminal and occurred an a driver wanted overtime 'merit when a delay at the rt of his shift meant he did finish his delivery round unI later time than normal.
s the driver would have cointed his round during his norI working hours, the managent refused his demands.
listing the original 10,000 shareholders, interest-free loans of up to £200 are being offered to nonshareholders, provided they are repaid over a year.
The application list for the new ordinary shares opened this week, and closes on or after July 21, by which time a major internal communication exercise will have been conducted to raise interest. To try to spread the shareholding as wide as possible, only applications for between 25 and 500 shares will be accepted.
In a prospectus being issued to employees, NFC chairman Peter Thompson said: "We have always wanted a company in which as many employees as possible shared in the ownership as shareholders.
"We have always felt that it would be sad if the employees were to become divided between those who shared fully in the fruits of ownership and those who did not" The gap between the "haves" and "have nots" was underlined at the NFC's first annual general meeting in February when shareholders authorised the new shares issue. They learned then that share applications exceeded supply at the previous dealing day, and at the last one, on May 27, there were around 350,000 applications for 170,000 shares.
Efforts have been made to spread the ownership by meeting new employees' requests first, and then dividing the remaining shares equally among existing shareholders, so that large shareholdings are not built up.
The Transport and General Workers Union has still to make formal contact with NFC over the new shares issue, but commercial group secretary Jack Ashwell told CM that it still believes share ownership is not in its members' best interests.
He said the TGWU research showed that 70 per cent of NFC's workforce did not own shares, and suggested that there was a disproportionate number of managers among the shareholders. In addition, six directors had bought 4,363 extra shares at dealing days since October 1982, which suggested that they were gaining an even greater share of the ownership.
Mr Ashwell said that some shareholders had bought shares in the false belief that it would increase their job security, and he hoped this would not happen with the latest issue,