NPL staff may strike over pay freeze
The union that represents specialists at NPL is to hold a vote on industrial action after being told by owners Serco that there would be a “pay pause” instead of pay rises.
The laboratories have already gone through 24 job losses this year – Vince Cable brought this matter in a debate at Westminster to protest against the cuts (rumoured to be up to 60 jobs at the time) which would have a detrimental affect on the NPL after budget cuts to the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (one of the largest NPL customers) affected revenue.
In the end only a third of the 24 redundancies were compulsory but Prospect’s Bob King has said that highly skilled staff have been lost and remaining staff are demoralised and fear for the laboratory’s future at a time when Serco’s operating profits are up 34%.
The government budget cuts have affected the scientific community and certainly don’t sit well with Gordon Brown’s 2009 promise of no cuts in this area because “the economic role of science will be of even more importance than before”.
