The Night Before The Big Day.......

There are only a few hours left until the protest at Westfield Shopping Centre, Stratford is about to start. The question is, in 13 hours time, will you be able to hold your head up and say, yeah, I did my bit, I went to the protest to fight for my job, my trade, my industry, my future and to give the companies a collective BOLLOCKS? I know I will, I know alot of other sparks that will be able to. But the question is will YOU?


OR will you be one of those

Tommy Clarkes To Bring In New Rules At Christmas

With the momentum of the Unite Rank And File Campaign picking up every day, the Big 8 are starting to get nervous. They are getting so nervous in fact that Tommy Clarkes and a couple others are already talking about moving the start date of the new Rules list from March 2012 to Christmas 2011. So it could be ready as soon as you come back

Unite Construction Rank and File - Newsletter

Sign up to the Unite Construction Rank and File Group by following this  link

Unite Construction Rank and File

On Wednesday 24th August 300 electricians protested outside Balfour Beatty's Blackfriars Station construction project in the first of many. Alan Keys said “What a great turn out and this is just the beginning now let’s push on. We can win this battle and turn over the 8 firms who have threatened to pull out of JIB agreement we’ve done before and we can do it again.

Tell Everyone...

So far this morning I have emailed EVERY national newspaper. All of the national television news programmes. The London news programmes. The London newspapers and every London news website I can find on the internet. As soon as I get any promising responses I will post it on here. If you have any ideas of your own about how to raise publicity (legally of course) and how to inform people about whats happening then let me know.
If you are planning your own protest in other parts of the country or would like to. Then let me know.

Moving On To Westfield..........

There has been a piece here and a piece there on the internet about Blackfriars on Wednesday. The best one I have found was clients are getting concerned about these protests and if they escalate to such a scale that there are simultaneous large scale protest at sites up and down the country they could start putting pressure on the Big 8. If the clients end up turning round to C.House - T2, Baileys - Crossrail and voicing their uneasiness about the situation then they will be getting pressure from both sides. The workers and the clients. The two vital parts to the companies

The First Of Many............

Today saw the beginning of the fight back. At 6:30 this morning Electricians started gathering at the site entrance of the Balfour Beatty site, Blackfriars Station. The protest lasted from 6:30am till 8:30am and was attended by approximately 300 Electricians.

Tomorrow is the day..........

23rd August -  So tomorrow is the day that we find out if the sparks and fitters of London are really up for this fight. I know quite a few people going but the majority are agency workers, we need to get the carded labour involved too. Live updates and pictures will be added throughout the day.

And Once In Leeds They Unite?

17th August - So off to Leeds everyone goes for the early afternoon meeting. All shop stewards, officers and three members of OUR committee are invited to discuss what is happening and to bring everyone up to date.

Unites take on the meeting :

An extremely well attended meeting of the Unite Shop Stewards Forum representing Electrical, Plumbing & Mechanical workers took place today (Wednesday 17th August 2011) in Leeds.

The First Meeting..........

August 13th - During the days following the issue of letters from the Big Eight. A group of Rank and File from the industry organised a meeting at a pub near Kings Cross, London. The news of the meeting was spread by word of mouth, text message and the internet. It was soon aparent that the venue was going to be no where near big enough. So a new venue was found. Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London. It was attended by approximately 500 Electrical and Mechanical workers. The email sent out after the meeting:

Unite Come Out To Play.......

5th August - Unites campaign page goes live for us all to see. Included on the page is a copy of the new Rules that the company want to call their Agreement (link to new rules pdf document). It makes for fascinating reading. A few points that I have pulled out myself:

• Morning (paid) and afternoon (unpaid) breaks are to be combined for the one break a day strategy
• Overtime rates for Saturdays are time and a half, paid at the companies discretion (no overtime rates)

Its all ok though isnt it????

1st - 5th July  - With Questions mounting up from the workforce the companies have no choice but to release a questions and answers sheet to try and reassure them that all is ok. Which I have managed to get a copy of, thanks to a fellow Electrician.

And so it begins...........

Friday 29th July - The Big Eight, with the full assistance of the HVCA (Heating and Ventilating Contractors Association), wrote out to their respective workforces, indicating their intentions of pulling out of the National Working Agreements: