Beckett: to confirm appointment

Industrial Relations Expert Gets Top Pay Body Job

His appointment is regarded favourably by many union and business leaders who believe the professor, formerly a member of the ACAS panel of arbitrators and negotiators, is ideally qualified for the job. A spokeswoman for the public sector employees' union Unison said, "It is a very good, balanced appointment as he has credibility with both the unions and the business world, as well as obvious business expertise."

A highly paid academic, Mr Bain will not earn anything from his new two-days-a-week post as chairman of the Commission, which will be made up of of representatives from unions and employers.In the past he has been involved in several high profile cases, including the so-called Playschool Clock Row, in which he was asked to decide which union should be responsible for switching on the clock on the children's TV show. He also sat on the Senior Salaries' Review Board, when he supported a plan by the Conservatives to freeze civil servants' pay.

Speaking to the Express on Sunday he said "I wasn't asked to do the job because of my salary but because of my industrial relations experience in getting unions, employers and others to agree."

Mr Bain was accused of being a Labour "stooge" earlier in the year by the then Deputy Prime Minister, Michael Heseltine, over his support for a minimum wage. Prof Bain condemned Mr Heseltine's claims as "outrageous".

GMB back £4 an hour

Union Reaction

Unison commended Prof Bain's appointment and top union leader, John Edmonds, of the GMB, said he was "very encouraged".

"Prof Bain has a good track record in all sorts of conciliation work. He has run courses for GMB members so we know him pretty well. He is well respected." he said.

However, Mr Edmonds will be pressing Prof Bain for immediate action. The union leader has called for a rate of £4.00 an hour to be brought in for all workers by April 1 1998. He said he believed there would be no difficulty in setting a tight timetable to establish the first ever statutory minimum wage in Britain, even though this date is believed to be much earlier than one the Government is working towards.

At his union's annual conference at Brighton, Mr Edmonds said he believed the Commission should recommend a figure by this autumn, giving the Government until Christmas to announce the new rate formally. The agreed figure could then come into effect from April 1, said Mr Edmonds, whose own union has been campaigning for £4 an hour for the past year.

"The aim should be that every company should pay £4 an hour by next April. There is no difficulty in getting this policy into effect by next spring.What are the elements that could delay it - that the Government cannot get it through Parliament? That the Commission cannot make a decision within six months? I don't think so. The timetable is perfectly possible."

The GMB leader said any firms that refused to pay the new rate should be forced to back-date any increase to the time of implementation. And he also believed that the national figure should be printed on every worker's pay slip.

The timing will be one of the decisions considered by Prof Bain as will the level of the minimum wage and whether to set a specific figure or introduce some type of formula for its calculation.