People power

One of my roles with the electrical sector is to chair the Joint Industry Board (JIB). I was invited by the two parties to the JIB, the ECA and Amicus-AEEU, to take the chair from the start of 1998. This followed the retirement of Jim Houston, who served as chair almost since the JIB was founded in 1968. The term of office is two years, but the parties have kindly renewed it twice. It is a privilege to be involved in this organisation.

The JIB has regional boards throughout the country. The recent minutes of one Regional JIB (RJIB) noted the retirement in June of its longest serving member. In thanking the RJIB he said: "The JIB was the best thing ever for the industry and the working relationship between the union and the ECA has really pushed the industry forward. The JIB worked because it was based on 'us' rather than upon 'them and us'."

His views seem widely shared. The JIB undertook a postal survey some months ago on how it was perceived by employers and operatives. There was a surprisingly high response for a cold-call survey, and a generally warm level of appreciation and satisfaction for the JIB's work. The parties have been studying the results to see how the findings can be taken forward as part of its overall strategic plan.

The encouraging results reflect much credit on the permanent staff of the JIB, ably led by chief executive, Martin Pollard, who retired from the post at the end of September. He had held this post since 1991, having served with the JIB since 1968. It has been a great privilege to have worked with Martin and the briefing and support he gave were outstanding. He led an extremely loyal and long-serving team with immense skill and impartial expertise, bridging many issues between the parties with quiet resolution, and will be greatly missed.

Fortunately, he has a natural and extremely experienced successor in Ron Allender. Ron has been with the JIB since 1971, and has served as Secretary since 1991. He is also an utterly impartial official, with particular skills in industrial negotiations and settling disputes. The JIB Board was unanimous in appointing him as Martin's successor from 1 October, thereby ensuring a continuity in the management of the organisation.

Dispute resolution is at the core of the JIB's work. The fixing of wages and conditions is its main purpose, but those are actually negotiated by parties outside the Board, and without any JIB staff involvement.

The overwhelming proportion of disputes do not need to go into formal procedure due to the skill of the JIB conciliators and good sense of the parties

The Board's role is to ratify and promulgate the agreed conditions then oversee their delivery. The resolution of disputes is specifically the role of the new JIB's expert staff. There are clear procedures, which begin with conciliation, undertaken by the Board's full-time national officers.

As a typical example, the North Eastern and Yorkshire RJIB noted in June that there had been four disputes dealt with by the JIB since its previous meeting. All of these had been settled by conciliation.

The overwhelming proportion of disputes do not need to go into formal procedure due to the skill of the JIB conciliators and good sense of the parties. Those few that cannot be settled by conciliation go first to a regional disputes committee, with the possibility of an appeal to the National Appeals Committee. The last resort is an appeal to the independent chair. I have had to deal with around two such disputes each year since 1998.

I cannot end this column without paying personal tribute to Sir Ken Jackson. It is for the members of Amicus-AEEU to choose their general secretary democratically through a secret ballot, and the JIB team will always work with the utmost commitment with the leaders of the union and the ECA.