Some 170 Camden UNISON members working for parking enforcement contractor, NSL, are set to strike again from Monday 10 December. The threatened five-day action would mark a dramatic escalation of a lengthy and increasingly bitter dispute over pay and conditions.
Green Party Leader Natalie Bennett speaking at the Unison rally in August 2012
Camden Green Party have given their backing to Unison and the traffic wardens involved in the dispute. The now Green Party Leader Natalie Bennett spoke at a Unison rally outside Camden Town Hall in the Summer. Natalie stated that she was “proud” that Camden Green Party had taken the decision to stand-by the traffic wardens do a “tough, physical, stressful” job for a “corporate giant” who pay them less than the London Living Wage.
Camden’s traffic wardens, most of whom earn just £8.09 an hour and work a standard 42.5 hour week, mounted a two-day strike in July and a further three-day walkout in August, followed by an indefinite overtime ban.
The strike threat comes after UNISON had tabled a revised proposal for a three-year deal, which NSL categorically rejected by email late on Friday 30 November. The company, which recorded an operating profit of nearly £10 million last year, has claimed it could not afford an additional 14 pence above its previous offer on the basic hourly wage, backdated to 1 September. The UNISON offer would have seen basic wages rise to £8.55 an hour, eventually rising £9.07 by April 2014.
Voicing both anger and disappointment at the company’s response, UNISON branch secretary George Binette said, “The company received an increase of more than 2.5% for this financial year from Camden Council yet it has yet to pay an additional penny on the hour to the vast majority of the workforce as 2012 draws to a close.” Referring to the Labour-led council, he added, “The union tried to engage the council leadership around this dispute from the summer onwards. Given its professed concern with the low-paid we had hoped for a much earlier response. Apparently there was an intervention, but now it seems that the council can’t exercise any meaningful influence with NSL, a company with which Camden has a six-year contract, valued at £44.6 million, which in turn generates more than £18.5 million for Camden’s coffers.”
UNISON branch co-chair Phoebe Watkins added, “Few of us fancy the prospect of an extended strike, especially in the run-up to Christmas. But NSL’s hard-line stance has left these low-paid workers with little alternative but to continue their fight. NSL management may be hoping to break the union by prolonging the dispute, but our members are determined to prove them wrong.”
Camden Green Party are pushing for the role of traffic warden to be brought back “in-house” and to become responsibility of the council. Given that traffic wardens are enforcing our democratically agreed rules it seems only fair that their job should be subject to democratic oversight and not be beholden to a large and less-than-transparent corporation.