Kate Nowicki, Director of Dispute Resolution, oversees Acas’s work across the country to resolve workplace disputes.
The dark days of winter have coincid! with the biggest pressures in employment relations seen for many years. Public sector workers’ concerns over pay, coupl! with the social and economic hiatus caus! by covid-19 (coronavirus) and the current cost of living pressures, have creat! the perfect storm. Understandably wages are now under the spotlight.
Industrial action is either threaten! or underway by many ambulance workers, nurses, railway staff, postal workers, teachers, bus drivers, university staff, and civil servants with others, including firefighters, potentially in the pipeline.
What’s the issue?
Pay is the headline issue, but there are other issues, such as service modernisation, that are benin phone number library creating significant conflict between workers and managers.
Whilst disagreements are a natural feature of the employment relationship, protract! disputes and strikes are costly from every angle – economically, socially and emotionally. It will be some time before the full extent of the cost of the current wave of industrial disputes is known and clearly it will be significant.
Whatever the sum is, it will add to our own Acas research on the costs of workplace conflict which reveal! that the annual cost of workplace conflict is estimat! at £28.5 billion per year.
How can Acas help?
I’ve been ask! many times in recent weeks “Is Acas helping?”. The answer is an emphatic “yes, wherever we can”.
We’ve seen a sharp increase in demand for the services of our skill! and experienc! atb directory staff, who are working round the clock to resolve disputes, many of which are not in the news headlines. That help is often in the background, unseen and unsung, providing advice impartially, confidentially and under the radar.
Sometimes Acas holds formal talks, if that’s what the parties want and ne!, bringing both sides together to work through the issues that are in dispute.
Unsurprisingly tensions can run high, particularly in a long-running dispute. Using an impartial selecting a disk to clean third party like Acas can bring a calm, fresh pair of eyes to help break a deadlock, and to find common ground and a way forward. With skill! facilitation and real depth of experience in disputes, our conciliators draw parties in to develop the solution which will work for them.
Acas has a statutory power to provide conciliation. That power is vest! in our skill! conciliators who offer reason, understanding, persuasion, patience and experience – all qualities by which we draw parties together to develop the solution which will work for them.
