City Link workers warned against seven-day strike

The Rail Maritime and Transport union (RMT) said its members, including drivers and other employees, backed industrial action by nine to one.

The workforce will strike for seven days from 1am, Tuesday 24 September.

RMT General Secretary Bob Crow said: “The assault on pay and conditions by the new, private equity owners of City Link has sparked a surge in recruitment and hundreds of workers are now actively engaged in the fight back at depots across the country.

“This massive majority in favour of strike action shows that the workforce at City Link will not stand by and take this bullying attempt to force new contracts down their throats.”

Nationwide protests

In addition, RMT called for a boycott of the company and will organise a programme of protests on 24 September across Britain at locations including Portsmouth, Milton Keynes, Coventry, Norwich, Chelmsford, Heathrow, Warrington, Basingstoke and Guildford.

City Link HR Director Scott Maynard, said the company had been consulting with “front-line colleagues since June over a series of measures aimed squarely at making their pay and conditions fairer and more equitable”.

He said: “At the moment we are in the position where colleagues doing the same job in the same depot are getting paid different wages.

“This is a legacy that the current management team has inherited and is one we believe is fundamentally unfair. The proposals we have put forward will resolve this while ensuring that the vast majority of colleagues see no reduction in their pay packet or actually get an increase.”

‘Fundamentally flawed’

Mr Maynard also warned the company could take legal action against the union.

He added: “It is our considered view that the RMT ballot was fundamentally flawed and that any strike action on the back of it would be illegal.

“We have made the RMT aware of our concerns on a number of occasions without any meaningful response from them. Regrettably, we are now left with no other choice than to pursue this matter through the courts.”

Mr Maynard said “robust contingency plans” were in place to ensure customers would not be affected by the strike.

“The service we offer to our customers is central to our new strategy,” he said.

City Link was sold off earlier this year to private equity group Better Capital for £1 by Rentokil.