Parking attendants to strike twice a week over pay freeze

Published on Friday 3 July 2009 10:00

PARKING attendants in the Capital today vowed to step up their strike action to two days a week as part of the ongoing pay dispute.

The city's enforcers yesterday took part in a second 24-hour walkout in response to employer NSL freezing pay at 7.09 an hour – an annual wage of around 14,500.

Union leaders today said there were plans for further strikes in the coming weeks if the employer did not get back round the negotiating table.

The company is understood to have been bringing staff up from Preston to maintain a presence in the Capital during the strike.

After the first strike last month it emerged that hundreds of drivers escaped fines, with only a fraction of the normal number of tickets issued.

The council said just 31 fixed penalty notices were imposed during the first walkout, compared with a daily average of 600.

Rob Stewart, Unite's regional industrial officer, said staff would consider striking a number of times a week.

He said: "There's still a real resolve to take this on. We are looking at making further approaches to the company to see if they are ready to make an offer. But if not, we will make the strikes a bit more frequent, possibly two a week.

He said union officials were considering dragging out strikes across a two-day period from 1pm to 1pm to put more pressure on the employer.

"It would have more of an impact because if they are bringing up people from down south they would have to do so over two days."

Tim Cowen, a spokesman for NSL, said that a reverse to the pay freeze was impossible, but said: "I'm baffled to hear them say that we won't go back to the table. We've had a very good offer on the table for sometime regarding improved terms and conditions. We think it's a very good offer and will result probably for most of them in improved take-home pay. We'd be very happy to talk to them if they would give us a bell."

He added: "Everybody who works at NSL has had a pay freeze this year. Maybe 75 per cent of businesses across the country are doing this at the moment – these are challenging economic times and we have to be careful that we run our business in a cost-effective manner. We didn't take this decision lightly."

Mr Cowen said the company had put office staff on to street patrols and had drafted in attendants from elsewhere in the country to cover the strike.

City council transport convener Gordon Mackenzie, said: "As with the previous strike action, NSL's contingency plans have worked well and steady traffic flow has been maintained throughout the day."