The Ball Is Rolling....

So it appears that Unite are now officially backing the protests. The Newcastle, London and Manchester protests even made Unites Official Twitter feed today. There are Rank and File meetings popping up all over the country with a good mixture of Official Unite meetings taking place too

In the last few days there have been several meeting. Newcastle, Grangemouth, Sheffield and Cleethorpes to name a few. Each meeting was extremely well attended and bodes well for spreading the word and educating others on site. That is the key. Every single one of you reading this post needs to harass, badger, bully people into realising that if they sit there and do nothing then in 6 months time they will be buggered. We need to explain and educate every spark we know. We all have mates who cant be bothererd or who dont want to lose money. Give them a thick ear. Enough is enough. If they dont do something now, they wont be losing a couple of hours here and there. They will be fighting for jobs with mates.  If we let this go through, there will be an official grade for installer. You look around on all jobs. Over 70% of the work is install. Give 70% of the work to semi skilled workers then you have 70% more electricians fighting for the same 30% of work. I am not great at maths, but that really doesn't fit. If you think "I'm on the cards so I am ok". Wrong. With 70% less need for electricians, that's 70% less work for electricians, which is 70% less electricians on the cards. So that means that REDUNDANCIES are inevitable. If you are on the agency then you are proper buggered. Agencies already pay below the JIB rates. Imagine them undercutting the new rates. Wont be long till we are all on minimum wage.


SO back to the meetings. The sparks who turned out at Grangemouth s agreed that more demo's will follow at Grangemouth and the Commonwealth Games sites and more!!! Also Mick Dooley (rank and file), was welcomed to talk and 2 lay members were elected to go to Leeds for the shop stewards meeting soon. At the Newcastle Labour club, sparks voted on further action, identifying several sites in the area to target with the first being the Tyne Tunnel. In Cleethorpes this evening, the sparks present voted on action in their area. The meeting was attended by two local Shop Stewards. The first target is a demonstration outside the entrance to Lindsey and ConocoPhillips Oil Refinerys on Monday. 


So adding the new bits and pieces to the equation. Thats now 6 areas with protests coming up. London, Manchester, Humberside, Newcastle, Glasgow and Edinburgh. Its growing, but nowhere near quick enough. The deadline has been set. 7th December is the date that the companies have laid down so we have to move faster. Spread it faster. Are you no where near the protests? Where is Birmingham? Bristol? Southampton? Cardiff? IF you are in an area that has not got a protest organised so far, get in touch. WE need to get this alot bigger than it currently is. If you are attending any of the protests. Email/call your local papers. Get them to come along. Ring and email every newspaper you can think of. We need publicity. 

Finally, IF you are not already a member of Unite. Join up today. This battle can not be won on our own. We need to force of Unite behind us. JOIN HERE.

Unite are now officially backing the protest movement 

Spread The Word. Keep The Faith. United We Stand, divided we fall

 DATES FOR THE DIARY

PROTESTS

 Wednesday 21st September

London - 6.30am-8.30am Farringdon Station, Crown House site. Our 5th London demo Unites first official one
Manchester - 6.30am Manchester town hall & Baileys site BBC Media City at 10am
Newcastle - Meet at 6.30 am outside the Duke of Wellington also known as Sambucas then over to the Tyne Tunnel site 


Thursday 22st September


Edinburgh - 9.00am outside City Chambers. The City Councillors will meet to confirm that Balfour Beatty has won the contract to build the new Portobello High School


Monday 26th September
 

Humberside - 6:30am at the main gate for Lindsey and Conoco Oil Refineries


Wednesday 28th September 
Glasgow - 6:30am outside the site entrance for the 2014 Commonwealth Games Velodrome Project

Meetings

Glasgow - Sat 24th Sept - 10am - Unite Regional Office, John Smith House 

Newcastle - Mon 26th Sept - 7pm - Newcastle Labour Club

Liverpool - Thur  29th Sept - 7pm - 9pm - Friends Meeting House, 22 School Lane, LI 3BT

Manchester - Sat 1st Oct - 12:00 - 3pm - Mechanics Institute, 103 Princess Street

Is there a meeting in your area not mentioned? Get in touch and let us know