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Swansea's last-ditch strike-busting efforts fail
IT strike will go ahead but council claims "business as usual"…

By Andy McCue

Published: Thursday 12 August 2004

The strike by Swansea IT workers will go ahead from Monday after a last ditch attempt by the council leader to get the union to drop the industrial action failed.

All IT staff will go on strike indefinitely from 16 August, with only the Child Protection Register system to be supported during that time.

But the council has declared it will be "business as usual" and plans to use an external IT company to maintain other vital computer systems in an attempt to break the strike.

However, silicon.com understands one IT services firm has already been approached by Swansea to run a strike-busting service and turned it down.

“We have contingency plans for this kind of situation and we will be bringing in external experts to ensure we provide vital services for the people of Swansea and our employees," said a Swansea Council spokesman.

Unison received a last ditch plea from the council leader at Swansea today to meet for talks, but only on the precondition that the strike action was called off first.

Jeff Baker, regional officer for Unison, told silicon.com there were no guarantees that the talks would address anything other than TUPE transfer.

"The most fundamental concern is the passing lip service the council has paid to all other employment models [such as secondment] apart from TUPE. We don't want to turn up at a meeting and just talk about a TUPE transfer," he said. "The strike is still going ahead."

Baker also claimed Swansea Council is unfairly portraying the IT staff as being against the 10-year 'Service@Swansea' IT outsourcing contract that has caused all the trouble.

"We support the scheme, although we have concerns about the cost. But we support the project principles and are willing to address the changes needed."

Swansea Council maintains it has made no decision on whether the staff will transfer to the private sector and that if they do there are a set of "golden guarantees" over their future. These include no job losses; no relocation outside of Swansea; no change in terms and conditions; and no detriment to existing pension arrangements.