Acas brought in to end Swansea IT strike

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.