News

Long established UK private equity group 3i is refusing to recognise a trade union in one of the companies it has purchased - National Car Parks.

Car park attendants in Enfield North London went on strike to win union rights.

3i bought NCP just 18 months ago and there is media speculation that the UK group is about to sell it on to Macquarie Bank in Australia (another buyout specialist) for a 45% profit.

General Secretary Paul Kenny of affiliate GMB told the Guardian newspaper: “we have the obscenity of the multi-millionaire private equity elite ready to rake off £245m from NCP as their mainly migrant workforce in Enfield are forced to lose pay by going on strike to get their union the right to negotiate their pay and conditions and to end bullying and harassment of their managers.”

A third contender for leadership in the ruling Labour party, John McDonnell, has called on the government to stop tax benefits to private equity groups - and to strengthen worker protection laws.

Mr McDonnell met the striking NCP workers in Enfield and later told the Guardian: “It is a national scandal that the casino capitalists from global private equity groups are allowed to treat British workers and some of our biggest companies as nothing more than pawns in a game of get-rich-quick where the greedy always win”.

The British trade union centre, the TUC, meanwhile has urged pension funds to think again about investing in private equity. Private equity is “too often about amoral asset-strippers after a quick buck,” said the TUC’s General Secretary Brendan Barber.