DHL strike threat widens after jobs move
DHL, the German company which is set to take over a multibillion-pound part of the National Health Service, was facing a strike yesterday by up to 5,000 employees in Britain who allege that management is behaving like “Victorian mill owners”.
The parcels company was accused of planning to dismiss 3,000 permanent staff to replace them with 2,500 casual workers in a move that would mean DHL did not have to make national insurance payments.
While ministers havetried to assure NHS workers being switched to DHL that the company was a good employer, unions claimed yesterday it was involved in a “race to the bottom” in terms of employment standards.
News of the strike threat at DHL Express came before a second 24-hour stoppage, starting tonight, by members of the public service union Unison at NHS Logistics, who are protesting at the takeover by the German group. The walkout coincides with a debate on the health service at the Labour Party conference in Manchester.
Shop stewards from DHL meeting in Manchester yesterday called the ballot on industrial action in protest at a pay offer which they claim would, in effect, involve a real cut in wages. Representatives of the GMB union said management had indicated the offer could be increased if the employees agreed that 1,800 full-time staff became casual workers.
Mick Rix, at the GMB, said: “DHL is proposing a rapid return to Victorian mill owner values…. The company plans to transfer the risks in the final link of the delivery chain from the company to the worker.”
A spokeswoman for DHL said the company was trying to make structural changes, some of which were tied to the pay offer. She said that a lot of the proposals had yet to be finalised and, far from adopting the approach of Victorian mill owners, DHL wanted flexibility for the company and for the workforce.
