Unite

Industrial news in brief

London bus drivers strike Drivers on Arriva North bus services in north London struck on Thursday 29 November, demanding a 2.5 percent pay increase. The workers, who are members of Unite, have faced a two-year pay freeze, despite DB Group, which owns Arriva, making nearly £700 million pre-tax profit in the year to 30 June 2012. According to Transport for London, the strike caused “severe disruption”. Pret union organiser awaits appeal outcome Andrej Stopa, a Pret A Manger worker sacked for organising a union in his store, will learn the outcome of his appeal against dismissal on Friday 7...

Ford: "It’ll come down to how hard we want to fight"

A union rep at the Ford Transit Van plant in Southampton spoke to Solidarity . Our position is to oppose the closure. There was never any kind of discussion around it – it was just announced. We want to fight to stop it. The mood in the plant is strange. Everyone’s very up and down, and there a lot of ongoing discussions and meetings so we don’t know the full details of what management is planning. Some of the workers employed by the contractors are talking about balloting for industrial action, but that’ll be around the demand for equal severance packages rather than against the closure. That...

Southampton council workers face new cuts

In 2010-2011, Southampton council workers fought a bitter strike campaign to defeat the Tory plans for massive pay cuts and other attacks on terms and conditions. The campaign ultimately succeeded in kicking the Tories out of office, and winning a “phased reversal” of the pay cuts from the new Labour administration. But now council workers face new cuts and service closures. Solidarity spoke to Mike Tucker, Southampton District Unison Branch Secretary, about the potential for a fightback. He was speaking in a personal capacity. We do not agree with his views on the rebel councillors, or on the...

Ford: occupations can stop the closures

Nearly a month after the announcement that Ford was axing 1,500 jobs (closing its Southampton Transit Van plant, and cutting jobs at the Dagenham stamping plant which supplies it), there are still no details of a high-profile, public campaign against the closure from Ford unions. Shop stewards, conveners and union officials have been conducting negotiations with management. Unions are in a difficult position, particularly as Ford is attempting to bribe workers by offering handsome severance packages; but they must go on the offensive to stand any chance of saving jobs. In a context of job cuts...

Thousands march against Ford closure

20,000 workers marched to protest job losses at a Ford plant in Genk, Belgium, on Sunday 11 November. 4,300 workers face losing their jobs, and workers at the plant had previously responded to the announcement by blockading the factory gates. Sunday’s demonstration saw the campaign turn out to the wider community, as well as mobilising Ford workers from plants in Germany. A delegation from Belgium had visited Ford’s European headquarters in Cologne, where they held a demonstration of around 100 workers. Although the demands of the union leaderships behind Sunday’s demonstration are timid, a...

Sparks occupy Office of Rail Regulation

Electrical construction workers and other trade unionists staged an occupation of the lobby of the Office of Rail Regulation in Holborn, central London, on the morning of Friday 2 November, as sparks continued their battle against blacklisting and anti-union victimisation. The Office of Rail Regulation oversees health and safety standards on railway sites, and only recently hosted a conference which applauded the role of union health and safety reps in the workplace. They are a publicly-funded regulator, and sparks were demanding that they take account for the outrageous anti-union...

Coventry car workers' factory occupation

Coventry car workers staged a brief sit-in strike after their bosses announced 156 redundancies. The workers at the Manganese Bronze factory, which manufactures the famous London "black cabs", began the sit-in after administrator PriceWaterhouseCooper (PWC) was called in because of a failure to find new funding for the company. According to Unite, which organises the workers, PWC had told them there were "significant interested parties" that might fund the company, only for the management to then announce lay-offs. The redundancies will come into effect immediately. 99 of the 156 are head...

Industrial news in brief

Workers at the St Pancras Station outlet of chain sandwich shop Pret A Manger are facing intimidation and victimisation for organising a trade union in the store. A group of workers began organising in August 2012, around a series of ongoing grievances including non-payment, late notification of shift changes, bullying by managers, and being rostered fewer hours than their stated contracts. A petition around these demands was signed by nearly half of all staff working in the store. Almost straight away, key organisers found themselves victimised. One worker was given a disciplinary hearing for...

Jobs massacre at Ford

Ford has announced plans to close two UK plants, with unions putting estimates for the resulting job losses at around 2,000. Unite leader Len McCluskey said that union thought that 10,000 further jobs along Ford’s supply chain could also be threatened. “Ford has betrayed its workforce”, he said. “Unite is going to fight these closures. This announcement has been handled disgracefully. Only a few months ago Ford was promising staff a new transit model for Southampton in 2014.” The transit van factory in Southampton and the stamping plant in Dagenham are set for closure, with transit van...

Industrial news in brief

Members of teaching unions NUT and UCU at K College in Kent struck for half a day on Monday 8 October as part of a battle to save 145 jobs. The workplace is spread over six campuses and has more than 25,000 students. College bosses want to make cuts to shrink an £11 million deficit. 57 jobs have already been lost, and workers fear that campuses in Ashford and Dover could be sold off altogether. Staff walked off the job at 1pm and held pickets and protests at college sites. Tesco jobs fight Delivery drivers for Tesco based in Doncaster could strike for 48 hours from 18 October. Drivers’...

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