HVCA president reports excellent progress on combined M&E working rule agreement

John Miller, president of the Heating & Ventilating Contractors’ Association has restated the association’s commitment to reforming and reshaping the industrial-relations culture across building-services engineers — and to the work being undertaken to harmonise employment terms and conditions across the mechanical and electrical sectors. He says, ‘We are working closely with the Electrical Contractors’ Association and SELECT in Scotland to develop a single working rule agreement covering the two disciplines.’ He believes that the ‘excellent progress’ being made on the issue should lead to sufficient consensus among the employers bodies by the middle of the year for meaningful dialogue to begin with the trade union. ‘Probably the principal issue yet to be fully resolved is the precise nature of the infrastructure required to administer a combined agreement,’ acknowledges John Miller, pointing out that the Joint Industry Board for the electrical-contracting industry, has ‘no locus whatsoever as far as the mechanical sector is concerned’. ‘HVCA members remain resolute in their belief that a new, purpose-built framework is required to accommodate new relationships, new working practices and new technologies,’ he said.

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