Strike go-ahead despite deal hope

Staff will be balloted on the offer on Monday afternoon

Glasgow commuters face further travel disruption as subway staff plan another walkout on Monday morning.

Strathclyde Passenger Transport (SPT) claimed it had made a breakthrough in its negotiations with the Transport & General Workers Union (T&G) on Friday.

It said its pay offer to underground staff had been accepted by the union.

But the T&G said the dispute had not been settled and the strike would still go ahead from 0630 GMT until members voted on the issue at 1230 GMT.

Last Monday more than 40,000 passengers suffered major disruption on the Glasgow underground as part of a planned series of one-day weekly strikes by underground workers.

The dispute has not been settled yet and we will release the details of the offer once the members have had a chance to vote on the proposal T&G

The dispute, which involves drivers, ticket collectors and safety workers, began on 20 January, after they rejected a two-year pay offer from SPT and objected to changes in holiday cycles.

The T&G had planned strikes on consecutive Mondays and it said next week's action will still go ahead until its members had been consulted at the pre-arranged meeting.

SPT claimed the series of strikes had been suspended, apart from Monday's action, in return for an extension of the union's mandate to take action without a further ballot of members.

Under the terms of the proposed settlement SPT said it will draw up an "affordable framework agreement" by 18 March.

It said this would include all the projected savings from new working practices which it would plough back into paying for improvements in flexibility and productivity.

The company said the T&G had agreed to respond to this framework by 1 April 2005.

Mass meeting

However, despite the company's claims, the union said the dispute over pay and conditions had not been settled and that it would only review its position once it had put the proposed deal to its members.

A T&G spokesman said: "We are going to put the proposal to our members in a mass meeting at 1230 GMT on Monday.

"The meeting was already arranged and until we have put the proposal to the mass meeting the industrial action will proceed.

"In light of the vote on Monday, we will then review our position in terms of the strike action.

"The dispute has not been settled yet and we will release the details of the offer once the members have had a chance to vote on the proposal."

We've made extremely good progress and reached an overall agreement which makes the union's decision to go ahead with Monday's industrial action all the more disappointing Douglas Ferguson SPT

Union officials met with the company for talks at ACAS on Friday night where it said the proposed deal was put into place.

SPT said its negotiated offer of a pay increase of 2.95%, backdated from 1 April last year and carrying through until 31 March 2006, had been accepted by 160,000 local authority staff.

Following the outcome of the negotiaions, SPT's director of operations, Douglas Ferguson, said, "Last Monday over 40,000 passengers faced major disruption and our main aim in going to ACAS on Friday was to save our passengers further transport misery.

"We've made extremely good progress and reached an overall agreement which makes the union's decision to go ahead with Monday's industrial action all the more disappointing."

The transport body said it would do all it could to minimise disruption on Monday by laying on alternative services on the day.

Shuttle services

It said this would include two free, replacement buses operating every 10 minutes between 0630 and 2330 GMT on the day of the planned industrial action.

One service will operate between Shields Road Station and the St Enoch terminal from the First Bus No 38 stop in Jamaica Street.

The second will operate between the Govan and Partick Stations.

SPT is also hoping to operate an 18-minute shuttle service between Hillhead and Buchanan Street between 0800 and 1000 GMT and 1730 and 2000 GMT on the day.

First ScotRail will also accept valid Subway multi-journey and season tickets between Queen Street Station and Partick.