Unite takes on the union-busters

Unite has vowed to tackle and stamp out attempts by contractor NG Bailey to union bust on the Mensa project at the Aldermaston Weapons establishment, in Berkshire.

Problems began on the project late last Friday when five workers, including four members of Unite, one of whom was a health and safety representative, were informed that they had to leave the site immediately. No reason for this removal has been provided. There then followed a walkout of the workforce on Monday  in support of the affected workers.

Following the intervention of Unite, the five affected workers were transferred to other projects. NG Bailey, however, has refused to provide the reasons for the removal of the workers and has blamed the principal contractor Costain and the client AWE for that decision. There remains a great deal of unrest among the Unite membership on the project.

In order to ensure that such similar problems are avoided in the future, Unite is demanding:

an agreement on a procedure for dealing with similar situations where workers are made aware of the charges against them and can answer theman apology from the project team to the five affected workers, a proper investigation and re-instatement onto the projecta guarantee that removal of security passes on this project does not prevent future employment through blacklisting by the client or contractorfull compensation for the loss of earnings of those taking part in action to defend their work colleagues

Both NG Bailey and Costain are proven blacklisters.

Unite regional officer Malcolm Bonnett said:“Unite is committed to stamping out this clear attempt at union busting on the AWE project. Enormous credit must be given to the workforce for standing up for their fellow workers, which has forced the employer to ensure that the affected workers were given alternative employment.

“It is simply unjust that workers have been removed from the project without warning or a reason given, this must not be allowed to ever re-occur. If NG Bailey do not agree to Unite’s demands then there is set to be further discontent on the project and a collapse in morale, which will affect productivity.”

Article from Union News

By Tim Lezard

25th September 2021 - 8:00 am

http://www.union-news.co.uk/unite-takes-on-the-union-busters/

NG Bailey M&E Walkout at AWE Burghfield

M&E Workers Walkout

Over 200 NG Bailey Sparks and Fitters walked off site at AWE Burghfield today (20/09) over suspected Blacklisting and Union busting. The row started on Friday afternoon, when workers were selected for transfer without notice, they had been told by their employer that it was AWE who had requested their removal. 

Anger spread through the workforce over the weekend at the treatment of their colleagues, especially as those selected are all Union members, with one being an elected union site safety rep. The workers held a meeting earlier today and sought answers through the management. 

One worker who has chosen to remain anonymous has told us: 

“AWE could and have removed access to site for workers in the past, we’ve only known it with an investigation and appeals process though, this feels very different” 

The NG Baileys workforce requested their reps ask for proof that AWE had made this decision. They were later informed it was Costain that had made the decision, who along with NG Baileys, had previously subscribed to the consulting association Blacklist. 

Seeing this as misinformation with no satisfactory answers coming, they walked off site this afternoon, requesting proof off their employer that Costains had in fact chosen the employees to be removed from the project, whilst still starting new workers on the project today. 

The firm responded with what workers saw as a lockout threat while also sending official statements saying they would dock any workers taking part in an agreed meeting on site in the morning. 

Updates to follow

"A battle for the future direction of trade unionism in the construction industry"

by Dr Dave Smith - Blacklist Support Group

The post below is edited extracts taken from my PhD thesis (can be read here), published in June 2020. Posting them now acts as a contribution to the debate about the model of trade unionism in the UK construction industry, and is also a reminder of why the independent investigation into union collusion in blacklisting is so important.

Appointed convenors

In standard trade union terminology, a convenor is the most senior union representative in a particular workplace, usually elected directly by the members or through a vote at the shop-stewards committee. In construction, this is often no longer the case. Under the guise of working in partnership, construction unions and employers have agreed a role for union appointed convenors site who are integrated into the safety apparatus of major contractors.

According to two academics, (Wright & Brown 2013), key elements of the role involve a lead position on safety issues, including carrying out regular safety inspections and site inductions for new staff, helping to resolve individual grievances, checking workers’ qualifications and legal right to work in the UK. Either the client or main contractor pay the convenor’s salary, often in an apparent twin role of senior safety advisor on the project, plus holding the position of trade union convener. The appointed convenors do not come from amongst the workers on the site but from a tiny cohort of full-time convenors who travel from one project to another.

Wright and Brown (2013:21) interviewed union officials about the appointed convenor system, one UCATT regional secretary explained:

“We make the case to the [lead firm] that the convenor will help to reduce the risks and costs associated with problems arising and blowing up”

Another UCATT official described the convenors as “employment relations problem solvers” explaining that “we have to show the client how the convenors will add value, because otherwise they won't be interested” (Wright & Brown 2013:31)

The wage cost for an appointed convenor, whose stated aim is to stop employment relations problems escalating, is insignificant compared to a stoppage on an infrastructure project. The appointed convenor system is the logical extension of the servicing model and partnership approach to union renewal. Major contractors with a history of hostility to organised labour are paying for appointed convenors in order to reduce the likelihood of industrial action on their projects. It is a twin track approach: appointed convenors are the carrot, blacklisting is the stick.

In fact, many of the senior company executives personally responsible for the blacklisting of union activists were amongst the most vocal in their support of the appointed convener system. Stephen Quant, former Skanska director and chairman of the Consulting Association blacklist claimed that he had a close relationship with two UCATT regional secretaries (both later to become national officers) and it became company policy to employ union appointed convenors on all major sites during his tenure. Quant claimed the final decision as to who would be appointed was decided after he had interviewed different candidates,

“It has always been an appointment. I’d just say to [regional secretary], ‘I would like a convenor steward on this site’ and they would pop up a couple of people for me to have a chat with and I would pick one. I would meet them in the office on a formal basis. It was all recorded because I have got to offer them employment”.

Even for elected convenors, there is a danger that they can be raised to an elevated position and lose touch with the workers they represent. Yet, however much senior lay union representatives may become incorporated into an employer’s industrial relations apparatus, in most industries they are initially elected by their fellow union members at the workplace. They can therefore ultimately be deselected and are consequently required to respond to collective pressure from below. For appointed convenors, the decision whether to select or deselect them lies with the union hierarchy and the employer (or the client), assumedly with the same pressures to respond.

Without any real democratic input from the workers on site, the union is virtually acting as a paid consultancy, providing the employers with an external expert to sort out the workers’ individual employment and safety problems. While appointed convenors may benefit the union machinery and provide assistance to workers with individual grievances, activists were sceptical about the prospects of building any shared response to collective issues, their criticism being about the role rather than the individual in the position. Bricklayer E was particularly pessimistic about the role of appointed conveners:

“I’m quite depressed by how incorporated into the corporate structure that UCATT has become. They have been paralysed, look how weak it is and they have allowed themselves to get like that. A convenor, in their most optimistic dreams, recruits large numbers of the workforce and then stabilises the finances of the union by working in partnership. They’re not elected. There’s very little space where union members can get involved, to become a safety rep or any meaningful solidarity. I’ve heard some of these convenors talking about the union providing some peace of mind. Seeing it as a sort of insurance policy, where people get union representation for an accident, but they have no idea of a union being something progressive that could change the way of life for working people”.

There are of course exceptions to the general rule. On Heathrow Terminal 5, the Amicus ‘designated reps’ ensured that they were endorsed by holding an on site election and subsequently used their position to organise collective action. This included a boycott of the site canteen over food pricing, plus action over excessive unpaid travelling time from the site entrance to the place of work and new contracts. The consequence was that once T5 finished, rather than being transferred to another convenor’s position as was tradition, both activists were blacklisted and suffered long periods of unemployment.

Druker & White’s (2013) study of industrial relations on the London Olympics identifies that while there were five appointed union conveners on separate contracts across the entire project, there were only three additional unions reps elected across the entire life of the mega construction project. The result was that although full-time officials and appointed conveners attended occasional forums with the main contractor, there was no functioning stewards committee at any time during the six year project, which is in stark contrast to the ‘vibrant’ union organisation during Sydney Olympics.

A possible reason for the lack of genuine union organisation was provided when company directors of the contractors that built the Olympic stadia later admitted to the select committee investigation that the Consulting Association blacklist was used to vet workers applying for work on the Olympics. This explanation however is disputed by one of the union officials from the project who is quoted as describing blacklisting as, “one of the myths of the site” (Druker & White 2013). Quite why a union official would be more sceptical about blacklisting than the construction companies that actually carried it out is an interesting question in itself.

In return for ensuring that workplace grievances do not escalate into industrial action, the very same employers responsible for blacklisting granted union’s bulk membership agreements and a union presence on major projects. Given the nature of employment relations in the sector, the biggest potential threat of industrial action which causes the employers residual fear comes from rank and file activism.

The partnership model and union organising are fundamentally contradictory approaches. Far from being complementary aspects of a multi-faceted approach, their basic assumptions, aims and methodology are in opposition to each other. This thesis suggests that it is impossible for both strategies to run simultaneously against the same employer. Union organising and attempts at collective mobilisation undermine the efforts of those wishing to work in partnership with employers, and vice versa. The two strategies together would either cancel each other out, or more likely the dominant strategy would extinguish the likelihood of the other taking hold. A top-down pro-business partnership strategy that involves appointed convenors is diametrically opposed to a bottom up rank and file organising model in which unofficial industrial action is a major constituent.

Fundamental disagreement between rank and file activists in UNITE and the layer of appointed conveners from UCATT has been one of the major sources of internal conflict since the two unions merged. One activist, described the dispute as a ‘battle for the future direction of trade unionism in the construction industry’.

2. Union sources named on blacklist files

• Reported by local EETPU official as militant

• AEEU describes as f. evil as far as internal union dealings are concerned. Active at branch level

• DO NOT DIVULGE - Above information arose from liaison between union, contractor and managing agent at J/L [this appears on dozens of files from the Jubilee Line]

• Information received by site manager at Heathrow T5 that the above is ‘not recommended’ by Amicus.

• Above is to be a delegate at UCATT Conference [union official] further commented ‘but people don’t take any notice of him now’

• Above information came from amicus

• EETPU says NO

The entries above are just a selection from where union sources are recorded on blacklist files. Many of the documents seized by the ICO when they raided the Consulting Association do not simply name the union who provided the information, they name individual union officials as the source of the information. These include regional secretaries, national officers from various unions and 3 General Secretaries.

‘EETPU says NO’ appears on numerous files and during the select committee investigation into blacklisting, Ian Davidson MP asked Ian Kerr whether this suggested input from a trade union. TCA’s Chief Executive agreed:

“That would have been the case. It would have been a particular relationship with an HR manager in a particular area and that regional officer of the union. I don’t know how you want to phrase it, but somewhere along the line that would have been discussed and somebody would have decided that that was information that we should have in our system.… The poor union official had to resolve the two sides. Sometimes he didn’t want an unnecessary problem, nor did his union."

FOI requests made by activists to various blacklisting firms as late as 2018, reveal email exchanges between union officials and industrial relations officers discussing prominent union members. The FOI requests identified that emails sent by activists to union officials discussing preparations for industrial action were forwarded to Costain in May 2015 and after 2016 internal minutes of national and regional construction committees within UNITE were circulated to senior managers and industrial relations consultants working for Skanska.

Several industrial relations officers claim that sometimes information was deliberately passed to them with the intention of keeping activists off projects. Dudley Barrett, head of industrial relations for Costain from 1984-1995 claims that union officials knew about the blacklist, adding that he had ‘good friends’ in the unions,

“who would occasionally tell me names of individuals who they thought should not be employed on sites... Overall, I gained the impression that there was a quiet acceptance by certain construction trade unions of the Services Group / Consulting Association and the ‘benefits’ of the checking service as such individuals could be disruptive of organised labour”.

A similar practice was also confirmed by Daniel O’Sullivan from Kier, who claims that because they were keen to prevent disruption on site: “Occasionally, union officials would give me information concerning a particular individual”. In the late 1980s, senior union officers even went as far as attending events organised by the Economic League. Trevor Watcham, TCA chairman between 2003-2005 recalls how at one such lunchtime event he sat on the same table as, “Leon Brittan of the Conservative Party (who had been the main speaker) and Eric Hammond of the electricians’ union together with some members of his union executive”.

In 1988, during Hammond’s tenure at the EETPU, the electricians’ union was expelled from the TUC due to single union deals, poaching of members and openly siding with employers such as during the News International dispute at Wapping. Many of the more left-wing activists broke away from EETPU setting up the EPIU, this led to a bitter inter-union battle over many years and information on some blacklist files identifying EPIU activists appears to originate from EETPU sources. This animosity was confirmed by a number of the interviewees, including Official C who accepted that “It was civil war between AEEU and EPIU… the employers obviously supported the EETPU and AEEU because they were business friendly”.

Investigation of the primary source data seems to suggest that in most cases the information on blacklist files attributed to union sources was not provided intentionally but was gathered by industrial relations officers during the normal course of formal and informal meetings with officials. However, there is corroborated evidence of fraternization outside of usual working hours that would go beyond acceptable behaviour in many public authorities. This is common knowledge amongst activists who view the practice with extreme disdain, which only adds to their general sense of mistrust of many union officials.

When placed in context alongside oral evidence from blacklisted activists and senior industrial relations officers, the documentary evidence from blacklist files and FOI disclosures suggest that on some occasions the proliferation of information may have been more premeditated.

There is a well worn path between officials leaving employment with a trade union and the very next day taking up a position as an industrial relations manager or consultant for a major contractor. On some occasions jumping sides of the negotiating table mid-way through a prolonged dispute. Whenever a new example of this occurs, it only helps to increase the general sense of suspicion amongst a section of activists about possible collusion by union officials in blacklisting their own members.

This is why the independent QC led investigation into potential union collusion in blacklisting must be allowed to fully complete its task. And if any officials are criticised in the final written report, relevant disciplinary action should be taken.

3. Rank and file union organising

In contrast to the top down business friendly approach, the building site based activist layer developed an alternative approach founded on rank and file militancy. The itinerant nature of the work and lack of direct employment status means that the full balloting procedure for industrial action is all but irrelevant in construction. Therefore, instead of being organised through the official union structures, the key support network for activists was more likely to be ad-hoc rank and file groups, which re-emerge in every generation. Within UK construction, rank and file unofficial militancy has already achieved significant success on an industry wide basis, especially notable in the 1972 national building workers strike, during the late 1990s and the 2012 BESNA dispute [and the ESO action in 2021].

Locating transformative change as primarily a function of national union leaders shifts the focus of attention onto internal union structures and processes and away from the workplace. Instead, this thesis suggests that union renewal in the UK is dependent upon fostering organic rank and file organising, wherever it springs up.

Workers going from one insecure job to another with little in the way of employment rights and facing hostility from anti-union employers is not a particularly new phenomenon: it could easily be an account of employment relations throughout the nineteenth century. Yet within a few months in 1888, the TGWU became the most powerful union in the world by mass mobilisation of precarious workers. The experiences of the blacklisted activists may set them aside from the majority of union reps in TUC affiliated trade unions in 2019. But in the era of neo-liberal attacks on organised labour, this thesis suggests that an understanding of the construction activists’ rank and file model of union organising may be of value to a labour movement audience beyond academia.

 

Edited extracts taken from:

https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/1490832/rank-and-file-union-organising-and-employers-counter-mobilisation-the-role-of-activists-in-the-mobilisation-of-self-employed-construction-workers?fbclid=IwAR0G5GVKPJUMw96KJJtL7Cg29wPUwuvJhHGyTavN8BZej1L8t289i5NdZzA

Monday 8th Deadline set for NG Bailey & Balfour Beatty

Monday 8th Deadline set for NG Bailey & Balfour Beatty 

The Construction Rank and File today set NG Bailey and Balfour Beatty the deadline of Monday 8th March to release a statement resolving the matter. 

 A Rank and File Spark said

"We the Construction Rank & File are today issuing NG Baileys and Balfour Beatty a final warning. Stop this deskilling agenda of the electrical industry and follow the example set by your client EDF. All your sites across the UK are mapped out for direct action starting with your major projects. 

You have until Monday 8th March to issue a  statement resolving the matter 

NO RESPONSE WILL BE TAKEN AS A DECLARATION OF WAR"

 

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

These are OUR jobs under threat, and we will fight for OUR trade.

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Rank & File Sparks Target NG Baileys and Balfour Beatty

Rank & File Sparks Target NG Baileys and Balfour Beatty Across the UK

The Construction Rank & File campaign against deskilling has ramped up this morning targeting NG Baileys and Balfour Beatty. 

Several NG Baileys office were targeted including Cardiff and Manchester, London and a site in Central London was occupied. There was also action against Balfour Beatty at Grangemouth Refinery in Scotland.  

A Rank and File Spark outside the Manchester NG Baileys office said

"We the Construction Rank & File are today issuing NG Baileys and Balfour Beatty a final warning. Stop this deskilling agenda of the electrical industry and follow the example set by your client EDF. All your sites across the UK are mapped out for direct action starting with your major projects. 

You have until Monday 8th March to issue a  statement resolving the matter 

NO RESPONSE WILL BE TAKEN AS A DECLARATION OF WAR"

 

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

These are OUR jobs under threat, and we will fight for OUR trade.

Join our channels for updates

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Unite Electrical & Mechanical Combine Statement

On Monday 1st March, the Unite Electrical and Mechanical Combine released the below statement.  

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

These are OUR jobs under threat, and we will fight for OUR trade.

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Hinkley Point Deskilling - Unite the Union Press Release

Statement from Unite the Union on the situation at Hinkley Point C. 

Unite statement: Hinkley Point C and Threatened Deskilling of Electricians

An industrial disagreement is ongoing at Hinkley Point C after it was recently discovered that two training standards had been introduced by the Engineering Construction Training Board (ECITB) that would undermine the role of the electrician, without Unite, the UK’s construction union, input or agreement.

Defective training halted

The matter has been raised directly with the client EDF who have reacted to Unite’s concerns. All training in this area has been postponed until the problem has been resolved. The disputed standards relate to cabling and containment work the ‘bread and butter’ work for electricians on new build construction projects.

Unite was alerted to the substandard training standards at an early stage. There are no electricians working at Hinkley Point C, currently undertaking cabling and containment work, as this phase of the project is yet to begin.

Due to the early intervention of Unite, the training of any worker or apprentice at Hinkley has not been disrupted as no one has begun to be trained on the ECTIB’s defective training standards.

No deskilling

Unite General Secretary Len McCluskey said 

“The undermining of the role of electrician has been attempted for more than 30 years, most recently in 2011/12 when eight of the major mechanical and electrical (M&E) construction companies promoted the use of non-electrical personnel to carry out skilled electrical tasks under the so called BESNA agreement.

 “Unite defeated the BESNA agreement then and we will defeat this latest attempt to deskill electricians.

 “Our message to the industry is clear. Unite and its electrical membership will oppose any and all efforts to weaken the skill set of the trade which will undermine the industry by introducing non-skilled operatives.

 “Any deskilling of electricians would result in a race to the bottom and would be highly damaging to industrial relations across the sector.”

ENDS

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

These are OUR jobs under threat, and we will fight for OUR trade.

Join our channels for updates

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Hinkley Point C Deskilling Training Documents Revealed

Hinkley Point C Deskilling Training Documents Revealed 

Below are links where you can download the Hinkley Point C deskilling training documents. They are real, this is what EDF, Balfour Beatty and NG Baileys are trying to role out at Hinkley Point C. These are the documents they don't want you to see so please share far and wide. 

Once they take the containment and cabling away, all that is left is terminations and testing. Around 75% of a skilled electricians work removed with two 7 week training courses. 

Electrical Support Operative Training Standard - Cable Installation 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/17vH2z9GB4O53Tt8gfUvAEoiBMCtn-w6k/view?usp=drivesdk

Electrical Support Operative Training Started - Cable Containment 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/17snnt2jXsZY3q3Ug-Vgk8HvVx8V2-8nc/view?usp=drivesdk

Once it has been rolled out on a major project like Hinkley Point C, they will be looking towards Sizewell and HS2. Then the NAECI and JIB agreements. 

Within a couple of years, 75% of electricians work will be carried out by operatives on a fraction of the wage, deskilling the industry. 

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

These are OUR jobs under threat, and we will fight for OUR trade.

Join our channels for updates

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There Will Be Fireworks

There Will Be Fireworks

On Wednesday 24^th February, the Construction Rank and File kicked off the fight against deskilling at Hinkley Point C by targeting several EDF officers across the country.

It has kicked off over Hinkley Point C as EDF and the M&E firms are trying to introduce installer grades that would take of all the cabling and containment work away from skilled electricians. You can read all about here in the previous post. LINK

 

Protest at EDF London Office

The Rank and File have served notice on EDF. Either the scrap the Electrical Support Operative grade with immediate effect or the campaign will escalate with nationwide protests every week, starting Wednesday 2nd March.

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

These are OUR jobs under threat, and we will fight for OUR trade.

Join our channels for updates

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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.

Join our channels for updates

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EMEC Sector Update

EMEC Sector UPDATE: 

What are the 2 most important attributes a trade union must have if it is to succeed?

1) It has to be able to listen to its members. 

 2) It has to be democratic. 

On Saturday, the National Construction Rank and File met to discuss an offer made by Unite the Union General Secretary, Len McCluskey, of an EMEC sub sector. We can confirm today (07/12/20) this has been rejected again, for the third time. The Rank and File and the EMEC committee would like to send a message to Len McCluskey and the Unite EC. 

 "The Electrical, Mechanical and Engineering Construction membership, who have their own proud history, request a specialised sector specifically for electrical, mechanical and engineering construction workers " 

We have a democratic mandate: 

Every Unite the Union branch that contains a majority of electrical, mechanical and engineering construction in this country has passed motions requesting the formation of the EMEC sector. The motion is also backed by some of the biggest projects in the UK. A full list of supporting branches and projects below. 

On top of that, we are also having an unprecedented response to the open letter. It seems that electrical, mechanical and engineering construction workers want a new sector more than a pay rise but we are planning to get both.

Our members aren’t stupid, they know that to take on the employers and fix the industry we need to be set up to win, currently we believe that we are not. 

Please make sure you sign the open letter on the link to Unite the union requesting the new EMEC sector. 

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSetaGW7GdBxz0dSJzChbQ8PDXU_eXrRaRxj7K2U6Wkkt5I3jA/viewform 

EMEC, A PLATFORM FOR GROWTH 

We are ambitious. We want Unite to be the only specialist electrical, mechanical and engineering construction trade union in the UK. It will create a specific sector on craft or trade lines that is easily recognisable, will strengthen our identity and encourage density. Having this new sector will give us more and much needed scrutiny. We will become faster reacting and be able to combat, more proactively, specific threats and issues affecting our agreements. We believe that the current threats we face, within the NAECI and JIB agreements, need a specific sector and a specific industrial committee with total focus. We need to be able to set up and scrutinise our response to the threats engulfing the NAECI in energy to waste. We want to set up our structures to focus and organise and embrace renewables, wind, wave, and solar farm construction as the government races to meet its UK climate change obligations (climate change act 2008 net zero carbon emissions by 2050 etc). We want to make sure our members have a seat at the table and that our members get decent jobs through training in a sector set to grow. We want to develop strategies which ensure the UK workforce is at the centre of plans to build its energy infrastructure in the UK, from nuclear to energy from waste, ensuring our national agreements come first and our communities prosper. 

After looking at electrical, mechanical and engineering construction trade unions around the world, we have seen what can be achieved. We look to emulate those unions by ensuring that our members are the most skilled workers in the country, with centres of excellence, making sure our welders, erectors, fitters, plumbers ,scaffolders and electricians are trained to the highest of levels. As we develop, we will grow membership, develop training at cost by creating training funds which can be inserted into national agreements. 

 We have unprecedented opportunities ahead but there will also be challenges. We want to make sure our members are ahead of the curve when the revolution in automation takes place, making sure our activists are trained and ready for that will ensure Unite will able to steer automation and not be reacting to it or be a total victim of it. If our brothers and sisters need a just transition, then we need to be ahead of the curve, and excellence in training and industry leading will be vital.

Continuing to develop the electricians licence to practice and the good work which has been done with ECS Check ensuring we have the skilled apprenticeships for the future. We develop high skill sets and eradicate deskilling and unsafe practices. We have to build disciplined strike ready workplaces that will allow us protect our national agreements, grow wages and terms and conditions, build a strong trade union craft identity and tackle rogue employers. 

A servicing trade union has not and will not work with the challenges we will face over the next decade. 

To the current UCATT Sector committees, we hope you can see we are ambitious. What we plan is bigger than the current set up will allow us to grow. Within the current Unite UCATT structures, our voice has been diminished. To diminish our voice and yet then seek to deny us from growing under our own merits and ambition is unacceptable and not trade unionism. Let us set ourselves up to win for workers. We are of course from the same union in struggle, we will still work and collaborate together as we pursue our joint aims as two equally strong sectors of a growing trade union. We ask you not to withhold and impede our ambitions to set up a progressive mechanical and electrical sector fit for the challenges of the next 25 years and the 4th industrial revolution. Becoming a specialist trade union for electrical, mechanical and engineering construction membership will be central to our strategy for growth and we believe with the right strategy, we will be a biggest sector within Unite. The current UCATT sector has made our voice smaller. 

To Len McCluskey This is the 3rd time that the sub sector has been rejected, unanimously each time, and we are urgently asking for your intervention before you sail off into the sunset. When we met you last month you stated you didn't see a problem with it but you didn't think you had the power to get it through the EC Len have faith, you are the general secretary you still have the power and we're asking you to get it done. Today (07/12/20) Tony Seaman, the current EC member for construction, again, contacted Len requesting urgent talks. Speaking earlier he said " We need to get this sorted. We have a clear mandate through the EC election and every branch throughout the UK that has passed motions in support. We also have sites and major projects expecting change. It is about time Unite listens to its members and accepts the democratic mandate from the membership"

 

Branch resolutions: 

South East Wales Construction Branch biggest mechanical and electrical branch in Wales. 

 The Mechanical & Electrical shop steward and activists Combine. (National committee ) 

Norwich Central Branch Branch L/E 1800 

Liverpool Construction Branch. NW/0541 (in spirit awaiting resolution). 

Manchester EPIU Construction Branch 1400/7 

Glasgow M&E Construction Branch 155/404 

 Leeds GEO/11/Branch

NE 404/18 Middlesbrough Construction Branch

London Construction Branch LE0555 

Site endorsements:

NAECI cat 1 site The Tricoya Trinity Project. (Unite endorsement across entire project). 

Mechanical and electrical workers working on site @ Liverpool metropolitan performing Arts collage. 

MGT all the shop stewards committee r spie MGT (TeesREP Biomass Power Station) 

Balfour Beatty Woolwich Station Crossrail. 

Shanahans on MGT (TeesREP Biomass Power Station) the biggest NAECI job in the UK. 

Balfour Beatty Whitechapel Crossrail (site endorsement ).  

Balfour Beatty Woolwich Crossrail. 

This list is continuing to grow and it's growing fast. The motion is already supported by the vast majority of electrical, mechanical and engineering construction members in this country. Please get involved and ask your work place to support See motion below : This Branch calls for Unite the Union to form a new industrial sector specifically for Electrical Mechanical and Engineering Construction workers in line with rule 7.1 - 7.3 . We believe that the new EMEC sector will be more issue focused faster reacting and more able to fight the specific threats and issues facing the mechanical and electrical workers. As mechanical and electrical workers we have a trade identity and although we work in the construction industry we class ourselves specifically as electrical and mechanical workers with a proud trade union history. We wish for this to be respected. We believe having our own sector will reaffirm our craft identity and will help us grow industrially inside Unite the Union.

MAG MOVED........ ON MEDIA

We have reported on the struggle faced by the skilled Electrical and Mechanical workers used by JCK on the Vanderlande project at Manchester Airport 

https://siteworker.blogspot.com/2020/06/breaking-news-manchester-airport-rank.html?m=1

We called off initial protests because of planned talks. MAG (Manchester Airport Group) had all ready silenced ITV’s Granada Report but although one worker described this as “giving JCK a licence to do whatever they want on here now” the workers remained disciplined and held back for talks hoping that their coworkers would be brought back onto the project. 

Talks moved and didn’t happen workers didn’t get invited back while the issues on site grew with a blatant disregard for decency and it became evident the reasons didn’t get brought back. So the protests started.

https://siteworker.blogspot.com/2020/06/blacklisting-at-manchester-airport.html?m=1

https://www.facebook.com/ReelNews/videos/605083056798311/?vh=e

The talks where back on with a keen interest in the allegations (all proven) the talks described as positive with clear actions set out, after site was given to MAG of evidence showing threats of violence, intimidation and bullying on the project, with parties admitting this was made possible because of the employment models on the project. The urgency has drifted from MAG though and what one Unite official describes as a “worrying separation in direction on the actions” 

With reports from site that the welfare and wellbeing review is being carried out by the bullies themselves, we’re back to the drawing board and will be taking the licence to bully, threaten, endanger and Black workers handed to Contractors by MAG on their projects. 

Blacklisting at Manchester Airport

Last week, the North West Construction Rank and File postponed a demonstration at Manchester Airport on the promise of meaningful talks with Manchester Airport Group (Client) and Vanderlande (Principal Contractor). It was initially called in response to the way that 70 sparks and fitters were treated by JCK Ltd at the outset of the Covid-19 lockdown.

You can read the background to the story here - LINK

Both Manchester Airport and Vanderlande have broken their promise of meeting Unite the Union and the Construction Rank and File for talks and have fobbed us off all week.  

Only a few days ago, there was a foreseeable incident on site where an Electrician received an electric shock due to the complete lack of electrical isolation procedures being implemented by JCK Ltd. This isn't the first time it has happened on a JCK Ltd airport project. A couple of years ago, the exact same incident happened on a site at Gatwick Airport. You would have thought they would have learnt first time round and brought in the correct procedures. This is not acceptable, construction workers deserve better than this. 

Workers who raised concerns with JCK and Vanderlande prior to the lockdown over Electrical Safety, bullying and Covid-19 have been told that they are not welcome back on site. There is no other word for this, it is blacklisting, and all parties are complicit. 

The silence is deafening and the talks are off. The site is now fully operational with workers being forced to work overtime whilst others are left out in the cold trying to put food on the table. 

The Construction Rank and File have been left with no other option than to take direct action to stand up for those on site and at home. Starting with a demonstration at Manchester Airport on Friday 12th June at 6am, with ongoing weekly actions to follow. 

See you in the morning.   

BREAKING NEWS

Manchester Airport Rank and File demonstration postponed

Last week, the North West Construction Rank and File called for a demonstration at Manchester Airport in response to the disgusting way that 70 sparks and fitters were treated by JCK Limited at the outset of the Covid-19 lockdown and the lack of care given by the client and its share holders.

The Principal Contractor, Vanderlande, closed the Manchester T2 Transformation Project site due to safety concerns over Covid-19 at the end of March and with that, JCK decided to lay off everyone without any notice or support.

At the beginning of May, Unite the Union released a statement which can be read here LINK.

After pressure from the National Construction Rank and File, Unite the Union, the Australian ETU and with the issue also featuring on ITV Granada (video below), Manchester Airport yesterday (Wednesday 3rd June) contacted Unite and asked for a meeting to discuss the situation and work out a way forward.

Whilst the Rank and File welcome this development, we must stress that IF there is not a satisfactory outcome from the meeting then the demonstration will be back on.

Frank Morris, National Construction Rank and File member and Unite the Union Executive Council member for Construction said “It has been well known for a while that the Vanderlande site was rife with bullying and precarious employment. Everyone involved in this comes out in a bad light, not just JCK for their attitude and treatment of workers but also Manchester Airport and the Manchester Councils that have acted appallingly with their its nothing to do with us attitude."

Since the project started in 2019, it has gained a name for itself locally as a site where bullying, intimidation and rule by fear are acceptable and the norm. Workers are rarely employed via PAYE with full terms and conditions but engaged through various forms of precarious employment and agencies. One worker was sacked before the lockdown for raising Health and Safety concerns over site practices and Covid-19. A few days later the site was shut by Vanderlande for that very reason.

The most worrying part of this is that nearly 65% of MAG are owned by the ten metropolitan borough councils of Greater Manchester, which are all controlled by the Labour Party with a Labour Mayor. So far, the majority of the group have been unsupportive. 

The ten councils who make up the group are;

•             Bolton

•             Bury

•             Manchester

•             Oldham

•             Rochdale

•             Salford

•             Stockport

•             Thameside

•             Trafford

•             Wigan

Shut The Sites IWMD Body Bag Protest

At 8:30am this morning, building workers delivered body bags to the London Headquarters of the construction firm MACE . The symbolic action was carried out by the Shut The Sites campaign protesting against the reopening of non-essential construction projects and the watering down of official social distancing advice to allow workers on building sites to work in close proximity for 15 minutes at a time, which they argue will increase transmission of coronavirus and lead to deaths of workers and their family members. Social distancing was applied throughout the protest by the electrician, bricklayer, engineer, carpenter and union safety rep involved.  

The reopening of non-essential construction has caused outrage on the sites and has only been made possible because the official UK government guidelines for the building industry has explicitly watered down social distancing rules. Standard Operating Procedures have been written by the Construction Leadership Council (CLC), a body comprising major contractors and chaired by Nadhim Zahawi MP, government minister for Business and Industry. 

MACE were chosen for the protest as Mark Reynolds, MACE CEO sits on the Construction Leadership Council and has reopened non-essential projects including luxury flats, despite originally describing the situation on MACE projects as:

"not compliant with Public Health England requirements... There is no way we can continue with the normal production rates [with] the two metre social distancing requirements” 

There has been an outpouring of anger on social media and the construction trade press, which has almost universally condemned the new guidelines for effectively providing a massive loophole for greedy employers to force workers back onto unsafe building sites. However, because of the long history of victimization and blacklisting those prepared to stand up for safety on building sites, concerned workers are often too scared to complain publicly. An electrician on a MACE project in Central London has been sacked for tweeting about the lack of social distancing on the site.  

A spokesperson for Shut The Sites, Dan Dobson said "Construction workers lives are still being unnecessarily put at risk from the watererd down Construction Leadership Councils 'Site Operating Procedures'. Contractors are already talking about extended site hours with weekend working coming up to bring delayed project back on programme, yet we are still within the Government enforced lockdown with hundreds of thousands of workers on site today. We fear that without a closure of all non critical works and a scheme to pay every worker, we will see a large number of construction workers added to the Covid-19 fatality figures."

An electrician from Manchester, Eddie Current said: "I can't leave my flat to sit on a bench in the local park with my daughter without the police threatening to fine me, at the same time as being forced to work within 2m of other workers for up to 15 minutes at a time without a mask, something isn't right here. I'm putting my families lives at risk every day that I go to site, I can't afford to not go as I have rent to pay, bills to pay and food to buy and I don't qualify for any of the Governments schemes so I have no choice. It's either take the risk or bringing the virus home to my family or risk starving and losing the roof over our heads." 

The MACE bodybag protest is just one of thousands of similar events taking place across the UK and worldwide on Tuesday 28th April as part of International Workers Memorial Day, whose global slogan is: "Mourn the Dead - Fight for the Living"  

For press interviews with the MACE bodybag protest organisers email: ShutTheSites@gmail.com 

For ongoing updates of memorials, protests and direct action taking place today search #IWMD20 #ShutTheSites on social media.

Note to Editors:

A full risk assessment was carried out before the protest which identified potential hazards and control measures were implemented to remove the risk

• Only 5 workers involved (many more wanted to attend)
• Event coincided with a trip to buy essential items
• 2m social distancing at all times
• Participants arrived by private transport rather than the packed tube 
• PPE worn

The protest with workers in full PPE could be deemed unlawful. The irony being that thousands of construction workers packed onto building sites across the UK is being actively encouraged by the government.