North West strike misery

Jun 10 2008 by Alex Turner, Liverpool Daily Post

THE North West was the most strike-prone region of the country in 2007, when more than 1m days were lost due to industrial action nationwide.

It was a 38% rise in lost days despite the number of disputes falling by 16 to 142. However, there were several large and high-profile walk-outs, including the industrial action taken by Royal Mail workers in the summer.

Around 40,000 days were lost in the private sector as 96% – nearly 1m days – were in the public sector.

In the North West, the rate of working days lost was 55 per 1,000 employees compared with the East Midlands, which was just 19 days. The national average was 38 days, up from 28 days in 2006.

The figures were collated by the Office of National Statistics and were published yesterday in its Economic & Labour Market Review.

The review found that disputes over wages accounted for nearly two-thirds of lost days, with strikes over working hours accounting for around 30%.

The transport, storage and communications industries contributed more than 86,000 lost days out of 131,000 in the North West in 2007.

David Frost, director-general of the British Chambers of Commerce, said: “In what is a tough economic climate, the staggering increase in the number of working days being lost to strike action will not come as good news to businesses already operating on tight margins.

“Industrial disputes have a direct impact on a business’s day-to-day running and the Government needs to work much harder to improve its current handling of industrial relations.”

However, the TUC argued that the figures were distorted by a small number of big disputes, including the recurring Royal Mail strikes and a walkout of 200,000 members of the Public and Commercial Service union in January, 2007.

It said: “The number of days lost to strikes remains at an historic low, and far more days are lost to sick leave in the UK than to industrial action, thanks to the excessive long hours that many workers still put in.

“A handful of large disputes in the last year have caused a spike in the figures.”

The level of strikes is well below the average of the 1980s, of 7.2m lost days, when there were more than 1,100 stoppages a year.

alex.turner