Hackney parking patrol suspends strike action

The five-day strike planned by civil enforcement officers in Hackney has been suspended to allow for talks to take place involving the conciliation service Acas. The 30 APCOA Parking employees, who are members of the union Unite, had been due to go on strike this week over sick pay. They had also rejected a 1.5% pay offer for this year.

Unite said it discovered that APCOA was not paying the 'London Living Wage’ (LLW) of £9.15 an hour to the mainly black Asian ethnic minority workforce as it had been wrongly including a non-guaranteed bonus in the calculation, with only 60% of workers on average hitting the bonus target.
Unite regional officer Onay Kasab said: “The employers have agreed to pay the London Living Wage, with backdating being considered.

“The management has agreed to negotiate with Unite over a company sick pay scheme. We have agreed to do this under the auspices of the conciliation service Acas.

“I recommended to our members that we suspend the action and engage in the Acas process which was accepted. We shall be going into these talks in a constructive frame of mind and we hope that APCOA Parking will also engage in a positive fashion.”

Cllr Feryal Demirci, Hackney's cabinet member for neighbourhoods, said: “We had been informed by our contractors and Unite the union that this week’s planned strike had been called off. We had already agreed to pay the London Living Wage to staff of our contractors.

 "Unite and APCOA have agreed to meet with ACAS, an organisation devoted to resolving employment disputes, on Thursday 23 October where we hope all issues will be resolved. We will continue our ongoing dialogue with APCOA."

Hackney's CEOs previously staged two days of strike action in August, after a 100% vote for strike action.