
Arbitration service gets warring factions around the table...
By Andy McCue
Published: 17 September 2004 11:20 BST
Swansea council and Unison will today begin talks to end the bitter five-week old strike after arbitration service Acas was brought in to try and break the deadlock.
More than 100 IT workers at the council are on indefinite all-out strike over the proposed £100m outsourcing of a modernisation project to the private sector. Unison is currently in the process of balloting 5,000 staff across the council on strike action in support of the IT staff in an attempt to escalate the conflict.
Chris Holley, council leader at Swansea, said Acas has been brought in following a series of informal talks with trade union Unison.
"The council has also presented Unison with a set of proposals which we believe provide a number of important assurances to IT staff," he said in a statement. "We want to resolve this dispute as quickly as possible, so that our IT staff can return to work. The council felt the best way to achieve this was to involve a third party."
The dispute has reached deadlock, with Unison claiming the council will not properly evaluate the viability of carrying out the service@swansea project in-house and of failing to provide guarantees over employment rights for the 102 IT staff.
A political row has also broken out at the council with the opposition Labour-led coalition trying to force an emergency meeting to vote down the Liberal Democrat-led ruling coalition's service@swansea plans. No date has yet been set for the meeting.
You will be working in a pleasant and fixed local environment, based in Chichester, supporting the activities of West Sussex County Council services ...
You will be working in a pleasant and fixed local environment, based in Chichester, supporting the activities of West Sussex County Council services ...
Led by a high performance management team, our IT team consists of innovative professionals working together to deliver IT solutions that provide a ...
CIO50 2008
The silicon.com CIO50 2008 profiles the most influential and innovative tech chiefs in the UK across all industries and organisation size, from the biggest FTSE100 companies to high growth dot-com start ups and the public sector. The list was voted on by the UK CIO community and a panel of experts. Find out more in our latest special report.
July 10th: Just MASH Marketing: The Customer Reference Mashup
TechNet Webcast: How Microsoft Does IT: Management and Operations in Windows Server...
Mashing it up with Support: Automate, Coordinate and Collaborate with the Incident...
Ensure Virtualization is Meeting Your Needs--Read this New White Paper
Stories from the web...
Copyright ©1995-2008 CNET Networks, Inc. All rights reserved. Top of page
silicon.com Dear silicon.com: Tech teacher shortage, Kangaroo and phones on planes Reader Comments of the Week
Mike Barrett From CIO to consultant: Project manager or salesman? Hard lessons from the coalface…