|
Hundreds
of electricians picket Balfour Beatty site at Blackfriars station
24 August
Hundreds of electricians protested outside the Balfour Beatty site at
Blackfriars train station today. Workers also protested in Manchester.
This is the latest stage in a growing campaign to fight the intention
of the 'Big 8' construction companies to pull out of the nationally
negotiated industry agreement, leading de-skilling and massive cuts in
pay and terms and conditions.
They see this as an opportunity to
introduce 3 new grades for electricians in the industry so rather than
the current Job Industry Board (JIB) rate of �16.25 per hour, they can
get away with paying between �10.50 and �14 per hour. For the worst
hit, this would mean a pay cut of 35%! As well as this, they want a
whole raft of attacks on these workers' terms and conditions such as
doing away with travel time and making it far easier for the employer
to get rid of workers and pick and choose who stays on sites. This is
a mirror of the attempts of construction companies to get out of the NAECI agreement which caused the disputes in Lindsey Oil Refinery in
2009 and the lock-outs in Saltend and Fawley this year. The Saltend
dispute, which Socialist Party member and NSSN supporter Keith Gibson
played a leading role in, showed that as in Lindsey two years ago,
construction workers have the power to take on the employers if they
are prepared to use it. The electricians will be determined to prevent
the union full-time officials doing what they did in Saltend and cut
across the moves to take national strike action to defend the national
agreement and defend these workers.
Unite
officials attended a rank and file meeting on 13th August which saw up
to 500 electricians elect a national committee and pledged a
recruitment campaign on the sites. But in that meeting, a Unite branch
meeting of 200 the following week and today's protest, workers were
determined that the union must be serious about waging a real fighting
struggle which backs up campaigning and negotiations with the threat
of strike action if the employers don't back down. Unfortunately, no
Unite officers were on the protest today and missed an opportunity to
show these workers that they take the campaign seriously. However, the
workers are determined to build the campaign. Rob Williams of the NSSN
pledged the support of the network when he addressed the rally, "When
you go to the shops, the prices haven't gone down by 35% so why should
workers' wages? This is just the start today. I appeal to all those
workers on this site today to join this campaign as these attacks will
affect you as well." There was a very good reaction to the leaflet for
the NSSN lobby of the TUC as the workers understood the need to put
the union leaders under pressure to defend their members, in the
private and public sectors.
The
campaign will continue with another mass picket in Westfields Shopping
centre site at Stratford on Wednesday 31st August at 6:30AM
|
