JCB awards 3% rise

One of the companies hardest hit by recession has begun to recover. The GMB general union has negotiated a 3% rise from 1 July 2010 for 1,900 workers at JCB, one of the first firms in 2008 where a pay cut and short-time working were negotiated to save jobs. Despite this, JCB was hit with 1,800 redundancies during 2008-09. The increase for 2010 is part of a three-and-a-half year deal that will see pay rise on 1 January each year to 2013, based on the Retail Prices Index figure for the preceding November. The deal was accepted in a ballot by a narrow margin of 54% to 46%.

JCB’s 34-hour reduced working week from November 2008 was restored to 39 hours in May 2009, although workers were asked to take a week’s unpaid leave in September 2009, and the latest 400 redundancies took place in December last year. However, overtime working has now resumed, and the company is recruiting 200 new agency workers to meet demand.

Gordon Richardson, GMB convener at the JCB Rocester site said: “We are still facing uncertainties and the 200 new jobs are only a start in reversing the losses we suffered in this recession. GMB members will be looking to make up the ground they lost during the recession both in terms of jobs and incomes.”