BREAKING – The installer grade is BACK with 75% of Sparks work under threat.

BREAKING – The Installer grade is BACK with 75% of Sparks work under threat.

In the past couple of weeks it has come out that the MEH Alliance at Hinkley Point C (Balfour Beatty & NG Bailey) are due to bring in the installer grade….. as early as THIS week. Which leaves us no choice but to move quickly into dispute with MEH, the client EDF and any other complicit contractors on Hinkley Point C.

Every few years they try and bring this grade in with the aim of getting up to 75% of electricians work done by others to save money and de-skill the industry…... and every time they have failed. Balfour Beatty and NG Baileys would do well to remember what happened last time they attempted this.

This time they think they have found a way to bring this new grade in through the Hinkley Point Agreement and have been secretly working on an implementation plan since the project began. They are calling it the Electrical Support Operative. The plan is to run 7 week courses on how to install containment or cabling and to pay them a fraction of what an electrician is being paid on the project. This will also reduce the number of electrical apprentices.

There are 9,000km of cable and 404km of containment to install on the project, and the plan from  EDF and MEH is to make sure that none of it will be done by electricians.

This affects ALL of us, not just those at Hinkley Point. As soon as Balfours and Baileys think they have got away with it there, it will be rolled out on to the next major projects they have their eyes on like Sizewell and HS2; and then onto every site across the country. Electrical Support Operatives installing all of the containment and cabling on all jobs, taking 75% of our work. Leaving just the terminations and testing for electricians.

The Unite the Union EMC (Electrical & Mechanical Combine) issued the following statement on 14^th February.

The Chair of the EMC attended a meeting with Unite and EDF on 17^th February and issued the following statement that evening, shortly followed by the NECC (National Engineering Construction Committee).

 

The National Rank & File held an emergency zoom meeting on the 20^th February and the feeling in the room was that of anger. It was unanimous that we will not accept any attempt at de-skilling our trade and will resist this attack with direct action, starting immediately.

 

Weekly actions across the country are imminent and we will be soon descending onto Hinkley Point to shut the site down.

This is OUR jobs under threat, and we will fight for OUR trade.

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