Last updated 15:57, Wednesday, 14 May 2008

HARD Times at Sellafield: this is why the bosses say they can’t afford to pay the workers more than two per cent on basic pay. Any more will have to be hard earned through saving money – efficiencies, in business speak.

That’s not good enough for the workers. Their unions want more on basic for obvious reasons – it’s guaranteed and pensionable.

Not much money has apparently been saved over the last 12 months, with production poor and profits no doubt down, so you take their point. On the other hand, Sellafield Ltd’s 10,000 workers aren’t likely to attract much sympathy from anyone working off site. After all, it was less than 12 months ago that the workforce got a 4.85 per cent rise on basic.

Copeland Council leader Elaine Woodburn, who has fought the nuclear corner more than most, went so far as to call it “obscene” – not the right word she would have chosen in a more guarded moment, perhaps, but again the point was taken.

Pay talks resume today after the workers voted overwhelmingly (a 95 per cent rejection) to turn down management’s offer.

Hanging over this is the threat of possible industrial action if a settlement can’t be reached.

We all know the nuclear unions have muscle but the last thing they or anyone else wants to see is the site crippled by strikes.

Sellafield Ltd takes the view that “in the good times”, when profits were high, the workforce reaped the rewards and so should make do with what the rest of the public sector has to settle for – especially as they’re already among the highest paid across the board in industry and the purse strings are so tight that the pay deal has to be financed from the £1.2billion NDA funding for the site’s projects.

We can understand the workers’ view. With the site’s future and their own so uncertain under eventual new overlords, they want the best deal they can get now prior to semi-privatisation later in the year.

Officially one of the reasons for last year’s big pay rise was to bring stability and improve morale of the workers in uncertain times.

But what everyone is starting to realise is that, as far as Sellafield is concerned, the so-called “gravy train” has come to a grinding halt.