15th March 2011 – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
The Building and Allied Trades Joint Industrial Council (BATJIC) has concluded the 2011/12 round of pay negotiations and agreed that there will be a 1% increase to the main rates of pay for Adult General Operatives, Intermediate Crafts (NVQ2) and Advanced Crafts (NVQ3) effective from Monday 12th September 2011. The agreement also includes recognition of the additional bank holiday for the royal wedding. All other rates and benefits remain unchanged.
Richard Diment, Director-General of the FMB said:
“This time last year we reached a modest agreement and hoped that conditions would have eased sufficiently to enable us to do something more meaningful for workers in the SME sector in the 2011/12 round. This has not happened and the recovery seems just as far away now as it did then. The construction SME sector has been in recession for three years and the outlook for the industry as a whole remains bleak with contractions of 2% and 0.7% expected in 2011 and 2012 respectively. Under these circumstances a settlement that reflects the current rate of inflation was simply not deliverable without putting jobs at risk.”
Diment concluded:
“While the settlement is not as generous as we would have liked, we have to acknowledge that the industry is still in decline and that growth is not expected until 2013. In such harsh conditions, preservation of jobs must remain the priority in the face of considerable informal economy competition and shrinking order books.”
