Remploy - the government-subsidised company which both directly employs and seeks to find work for disabled people - has faced pretty consistent industrial strife since proposals emerged to close several of its 83 factories last year.

The closure of 29 factories earlier this year was bitterly opposed by trade unions, led by GMB, and their members, who staged a series of strikes which followed a nationwide mobile demonstration last year at all the targeted closure sites.

You would have expected that a 3% pay offer from management this year (well below the current inflation rate of 5%) would have kept the fires of industrial strife burning.

However, a letter to union members from Paul Kenny, national secretary for manufacturing at Unison, advising members to accept suggests we may be in for a new era of industrial relations at the company.

He says the recommendation to accept was "in view of the difficult circumstances" at Remploy and the "need to move forward".

Kenny adds: "A new management structure is being introduced and there is room for optimism. The trade unions will continue to work for the survival of Remploy and by accepting the offer it will be the first step to showing how responsible the Remploy trade union members are."

With a new chief executive - Tim Matthews, a former NHS trust and Highways Agency chief - taking over in October, this really could be a new era at Remploy.

Whether the company can meet its highly ambitious targets to keep the remaining 54 factories afloat by significantly boosting public sector contracts and quadrupling - from 5,000 to 20,000 - the number of disabled people it finds employment for a year by 2013 is another matter.

Read the complete post at http://www.communitycare.co.uk/blogs/social-work-blog/2008/08/has-peace-broken-out-at-remplo.html