Meet Peter McGee, area director of Acas Yorkshire & Humber (From York Press)

Meet Peter McGee, area director of Acas Yorkshire & Humber

3:15pm Tuesday 7th September 2010 in

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AS EXPERTS argue the economic fate of York and North and East Yorkshire, one prediction is certain – that Peter McGee is going to be a busy man this winter and the whole of next year.

Peter is the area director of Acas Yorkshire & Humber – and while the pundits may foresee a new winter of discontent, with public sector cuts generating new flames of anger, his role will be fire prevention.

And if that doesn't work he will be immersed in the tough – but, as he sees it, never impossible – task of bringing warring managements and workers together.

The Belfast-accented Peter’s organisation is an acronym for Advisory Conciliation and Arbitration Service and so you would expect his attitude and careful word-choosing to be…conciliatory.

The cuts are about the whole Government sector not just Government departments It is no secret, for instance, that there are a number of public sector organisations in North Yorkshire, as well as private firms who rely heavily on Government department contracts – The Department of Work and Pensions, the Food and Environment Research Agency, the NHS, local government, police, fire and rescue services...

In North Yorkshire alone last year Acas was involved in 13 disputes – seven in the private sector and six in the public sector.

The private sector clashes related to pay, redundancy and trade union recognition while the public sector disputes were concerned with pay-related issues such as allowances and holiday pay entitlement, redundancy and trade union related activities.

That is according to the Officer of National Statistics, but this is not a subject Peter wants to broach publicly.

He says: “In York and North and East Yorkshire we have done a fair bit of work but I daren't be specific because that would be a breach of trust with the people we have supported. For us trust is paramount.”

Nor is Peter prepared to discuss all the extreme talk about the prospect of a double dip and the clash-to-come. Instead he notes – with thoughtful precision - that the evidence at this stage does not point to industrial warfare.

"Nationally last year up to December there were 438,300 working days lost through industrial action, compared with 1,161,500 days lost the previous year. Those figures were less than the ten year average of 670,500 days lost.”

That downward trend is echoed regionally. Last year Acas Yorkshire and Humber dealt with 96 largescale disputes – ten per cent of the national total. In the previous two years the number remained at a steady 97.

“One of the main reasons is that we have seen a lot of instances where management, employees and their representatives have collaborated to look at solutions to save businesses money without losing jobs or, at least, find ways to reduce redundancies”

Other factors that will have helped were low inflation and low interest rates which, for many people, will have cushioned the effect of reduced earnings.

But now there are growing inflationary pressures plus 25 to 30 per cent cuts ordered by the Government in the public sector. Aren’t these bound to put more strain on industrial relations than ever before?

He says: “Yes, I agree that pressures are growing that could plant the seeds of significant employment relations problems but I contend that does not necessarily mean that we will see high scale industrial conflict.”

He insists that there are ways of reducing the risk. What we need, he argues, is good communications from management to staff in public sector bodies “about what is happening, why and when and to whom, with an acknowledgement that things can change very quickly.

“You might say to your staff today that as far as you know, you are likely to face this change for a particular reason - but two months down the line you might have to change plans as a consequence of the comprehensive spending review which won't be published until October.

“In other words keep people in the picture but with an honest acknowledgement that the situation is fluid.”

He also urges management and unions to make maximum use of the joint working mechanisms that they have in the public sector at the earliest possible point.

Both sides needed to discuss how changes could be made - and in a way that reduced, as far as possible, the adverse effects on individual employees and on services.

“Experience from the private sector in the last 18 months suggests that this joint working has produced some very innovative alternatives to wholescale job losses,” he says.

He wants both sides to make full use of services such as Acas to help them both prevent disputes or, if they do erupt, to help resolve them as quickly as possible.

He says: “You don't have to wait until strike action is about to happen or happening. You can involve ACAS much earlier - the moment, for example, you feel you have reached an impasse in negotiations. The sooner the better.”

In the private sector there was terrible anxiety over the past two years but the evidence was that people had got together and come up with solutions that in many cases avoided the worst.

“With 25 – 30 per cent cuts you can't avoid pain, but what management and workers’ representatives can do is work damned hard to try and reduce the pain to a minimum.

“I can't tell you what the solutions are but I can facilitate a process of problem-solving. Often both sides won't need us because they have good communication processes, but sometimes they may want us to strengthen those processes. Or we can help them to get past the impasse and back on the road to finding solutions.”

The ACAS helpline at 08457474747 is a good barometer of prevailing issues, he says.

“Typically, the most common calls for our help are disciplinary and redundancy matters. During the worst phase of recession in the private sector the incidence of calls about redundancy went up by 13 - 14 per cent but are now back to pre-recession levels.

“It tends to reflect what we hear on the news - that the private sector is coming out of recession.

“But I wouldn't be surprised if the experience in the public sector over the coming months doesn't have a sharp increase in people calling our helpline.”

Peter has been with Acas for four years. Belfast-born, he was trained in law at Queen's in Belfast and personnel management at Strathclyde in Glasgow and for 25 years ran voluntary and community organisations. For three years he was business development manager for Hull College.

All of which equipped him to be judicious. “Can't take sides,” he repeats “As soon as we do that we are dead. No one would trust us. And that is the key to our success. We are trusted.”