Following an ‘intensive summit meeting’ over two days on Monday 26 and Tuesday 27 April, a consensus has been reached between Go North West and Unite on the way forwards for the operator’s Queens Road depot in Manchester, where strikes over revised working conditions have been ongoing for over two months following a bid to stem losses at the company, which it said amounted to £1.8m per year.
The meeting was attended by Unite General Secretary Len McClusky, plus Sharon Graham, Bobby Morton and Ritchie James of Unite, and Go Ahead Group CEO David Brown, along with Scott Maynard and Nigel Featham representing Go North West.
An agreement was signed which confimed the cancellation of a second strike ballot along with an undertaking by the trade union to ballot its members on the deal, with a recommendation to accept. “The timetable for implementation is now in the hands of Unite’s local representatives,” a Go North West statement said, “and we expect to be moving forward with all due speed within days. It’s been a long hard road to modernisation but, at last, Queens Road finally has a viable future.”
