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Electricians Protest
Targets Olympics Site
14 September
Another protest against the attacks on national agreements in the electrical and
mechanical construction sector took place on Wednesday 14 September at the
Olympic site in East London. About 100 workers and their supporters gathered to
protest against the attempts to deskill the industry by eight major construction
companies, including major names such as Balfour Beatty. Five of these companies
have upped the stakes by issuing what the union Unite describes as “legal notice
of their intention to dismiss, with notice, thousands of employees before
re-engaging them on new inferior contracts”. A deadline has been set for 7
December for all employees to sign these new contracts.
The mood of the workers was angry.
They get paid good wages (about £16 an hour) for high-grade skills yet face the
prospect of being reclassed as ‘semi-skilled’ and therefore lower paid; some
cuts in pay could be as much as 35%! The bosses want to scrap the existing 50-50
agreements which decide the skill levels of workers and unilaterally decide
grades themselves. And the work is dangerous, with the protest being told by one
worker that there had been three serious accidents on the Olympic site last week
alone.
This protest, organised by the rank
and file construction workers’ campaign, was attended by two Unite officials and
addressed by Vince Passfield, regional secretary for the union’s construction
sector. He recognised the anger of the members that has shown big turnouts at
weekly protests and that Unite had officially called the next one for the
Farringdon Crossrail site on Wednesday 21 September. Nevertheless, many workers
in the industry believe Unite and other unions have been too slow in organising
resistance to the bosses’ attacks, which is why the unofficial campaign was
established. Most of the workers are calling for unions, particularly Unite, to
organise a national ballot for strike action to hit the bosses in their pockets
and stop these attacks on terms and conditions.
A number of speakers backed up this
call and Kevin Parslow, assistant secretary of the NSSN bringing greetings from
that body, welcomed the protests and recognised a growing anger in the private
sector against the attacks of the bosses and the ConDem government. He called
for any strikes organised in construction (2 million workers are in the industry
although only 10% are in unions) to be co-ordinated with the public-sector
unions discussing action on pensions. That could bring the bosses to the table
and even to their knees, he said.
The protest marched down to the main
road and blocked traffic for a short while before being asked to move on by the
police. The workers felt they had made their point about their potential power!
The protest was ended by blacklisted construction worker Dave Smith reminding
those gathered that the enemy “wasn’t Polish workers or Portuguese workers, but
the bosses who want to take more profits from your pay”.
Other protests also took place today
at the Grangemouth oil refinery in Scotland and Balfours Carrington paper mill
site in Manchester.
A young construction worker posted on
Facebook recently: “I'm 20 years old. I'm in my fourth year of my
apprenticeship; you’re telling me I have worked my ass off for the last four
years doing all my college work and getting all the correct grades to be an
electrician and then put on the same money as some one who, no offence, works in
McDonalds? This can't be right. This is the first I have heard of this de-skilling.
What can I do about this? Cheers.”
Next protests:
Wednesday 21
September 6:30am
London:
Farringdon Crossrail site, London; called officially by Unite.
North East:
Balfour Beatty, Percy Street Newcastle 6.30am
Future rank and file
meetings:
North East:
Friday 16 September at the
Labour Club in Newcastle starting at 7:00pm.
London and
South East: Wednesday, 21
September, 6:30pm, Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London.
North-West:
Saturday 1 October 12:00 noon, Mechanics Institute, 103 Princess Street,
Manchester |
