Camden’s traffic wardens, employed by parking enforcement contractor NSL, will not be striking after all. Their union, UNISON, called off a five-day strike that had been set to start on Monday 10 December and an indefinite overtime ban that had been in place since late August after reaching a deal with senior NSL management.
Traffic warden’s picket on Crowndale Road
The three-year settlement concluded on Thursday (06 December) will result in:
• A 4% rise on the hourly rate, backdated to 1 September 2012
• A 3% rise on top of that increase, with effect from 1 April 2013, and
• A further 3% increase from 1 April 2014.
Camden Green Party have given support to the borough’s traffic wardens throughout their battle with NSL and last summer Natalie Bennett, now leader fo the Green Party, spoke at a Unison rally outside Camden Town Hall. The Party were delighted to see a deal reached between Unison and NSL that will see a necessary increase in the wages of Camden’s wardens who carry-out a physically demanding a stressful job on some of London’s busiest roads.
The deal will take the basic hourly rate for workers on the contract from the current £8.09 an hour to £8.92 an hour by April 2014. As a result hourly rates, which had lagged behind the London Living Wage, currently £8.30 and set to increase to £8.55 next spring, will surpass it in each year of the agreement. NSL management has pledged to implement the backdated pay award before Christmas.
Commenting on the outcome, UNISON Branch Secretary George Binette said, “While this deal falls well short of achieving the workers’ original, justified, demands, the actions and the determination of our branch’s stewards and members over the past several months have struck a small but real blow against poverty pay and set an example that we’ll encourage other groups of workers to follow.”
Binette added, “The deal that has emerged reflects the combined impact of dramatic growth in UNISON membership on the contract, the development of shop stewards’ organisation and the threat of effective industrial action. Of course, the outcome is disappointing in some respects, but given the cold climate for trade unionism in Britain it is also a real achievement.”
Branch co-chair Phoebe Watkins said, “The dispute showed once again that low-paid workers can organise and fight in a determined way for improvements to their pay and conditions. It has also highlighted the damaging impact of privatisation that has plunged so many workers into poverty pay and served as a timely reminder to Camden’s Labour controlled council that it cannot simply wash its hands of responsibility for workers on outsourced contracts.”
UNISON and NSL have agreed, in principle, to discuss a wide range of issues not directly related to basic pay in the New Year. Meanwhile, the Camden branch is committed to working with other union branches in local authorities across London NSL contracts to build membership and organisation with the aim of securing really substantial gains for low paid workers over the months and years ahead.