CWU catering members unfreeze pay
7th June 2012
Quadrant workers have voted by an enormous 98 per cent in favour of a pay deal negotiated by CWU, following "extremely difficult" negotiations with the catering facilities company.
Staff will now receive an increase of 2.75 per cent -
backdated to last October and effective until this October - in an
agreement that was finally nailed down by the union's assistant
secretary Terry Pullinger and his negotiating team
in the midst of what he describes as "a highly challenging
environment.
"The talks were hindered by the pressure on Quadrant - from
owners Compass and Royal Mail - to cut costs and the management
team's pay freeze made the context even tougher, while the
senior executive told us that they had taken a 5 per cent pay
cut," Terry explained.
"In the circumstances, when we finally managed to squeeze a
2.75 per cent offer from the company, we concluded that this was as
much as we were able to obtain through negotiation alone.
"And, given the present situation in which the continued
existence of many facilities is under threat - a threat we're
currently campaigning hard to resist - it was our conclusion that a
push for industrial action would not be in the best interests of
members at this time."
The ballot result has been welcomed by CWU as a vindication of the
strategy and Terry said: "We thank members for this
overwhelming endorsement and now we're rolling our sleeves up
for a renewed push with our 'Use it or Lose it' campaign,
which has showed some positive early results."
For more on the campaign visit Quadrant: Use it or lose it
and 'like' us on Facebook.
