On behalf of members within the NMSI branch, Prospect negotiator Andy Bye is urging members and non-members alike to sign the electronic petition and help the branch “show management and the government how seriously we take industrial relations.”

Members at NMSI lodged the petition to express alarm over an industrial relations stalemate – which resulted in deadlock in the 2008 pay negotiations, imposition of a derisory two-year pay deal and industrial action by members – and its impact on the institution as a whole.

While the petition notes the below-inflation pay offers inflicted across most of the public sector, it highlights how some points on NMSI’s pay scales have been frozen for up to four years. Many staff only received a one per cent increase at a time of high inflation.

Bye said: “We’re asking members to sign, send the link to their friends and get them to sign it as well. This is a national petition about a national institution, it’s not just about the staff asking for the return of proper union negotiations.”

Please view the petition and add your support.

NMSI members are aiming to exceed the 300 signatures needed to prompt an official response before the March 26 deadline.

The issue is also the subject of early day motion 371 in the Commons.