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17 January, 2011
For the second straight year, trade unions representing over a quarter of the 10,500 UK workers in publicly-traded electric and gas company National Grid have voted to take industrial action. Some 3,000 union members of Unite, Prospect, and Unison balloted overwhelmingly to take action short of a strike due to an inferior 2010 pay offer by National Grid.
Following talks last week that saw the London-based company only reduce from three years to two its wage offerings, industrial action that would include work-to-rule and a ban on overtime could begin by month’s end. The current dispute is the second year running that profitable National Grid has proposed wage hikes below UK’s retail price increase.
In 2009 pay talks, unionised National Grid workers balloted affirmatively for strike action, but labour and management agreed to a 1.3% increase before the industrial activity could begin. In talks this time, National Grid initially put forth a three-year pay offer of 2.5%, 2.25%, and 2.25%, still below inflation.
On 12 January, the company revised its pay proposal by offering a two-year deal of 2.5% and 2.25%, but continues to insist on certain conditions attached to the increases. The unions are seeking a one-year wage deal from 2010.
In early January, the 750 mainly electrical transmissions workers that are represented by Unite the Union voted by 94% for industrial action. Grid system engineers, gas operations engineers, and field engineers, represented by Prospect and numbering 1,000, then voted by 95% for the overtime ban and work-to-rule, which means performing only the minimum level of work as specified in contracts. The 1,200 Unison members, mostly gas workers, also voted by a wide margin for industrial action.
National Grid posted a 12% increase in pre-tax profits and shareholders saw an 8% increase in dividends in the first half of 2010. About the same period that unions were voting for industrial action, on 6 January UK energy regulator Ofgem levied a £8 million fine on National Grid for reporting completion of gas pipe maintenance work that was imposed by the government’s Health and Safety Executive (HSE). In fact, that maintenance work had never been done.
It was the second big fine in two years by Ofgem against in National Grid. In 2009, the company agreed to pay a reduced a fine of £15 million for misreporting maintenance work.