Amicus

Large engineering and general union

Oil refinery strike for pensions

At the time of going to press, 1,200 members of Amicus/Unite employed at Grangemouth oil refinery are due to begin 48 hours of strike action at 6.00am on Sunday 27 April – the first strike in a British oil refinery since 1935. The strike could result in fuel supplies in Scotland, the North of England, and Northern Ireland drying up within a matter of days, and also lead to a shutdown of production in the North Sea oilfield. (Although the strike is only due to last 48 hours, running down, and then resuming, production at the refinery is a lengthy process. Fuel shortages could last for as long...

Birmingham to strike 23-24 April

Birmingham City Council workers will strike again on 23 and 24 April over the council’s plans to use “single status” negotiations to cut pay and jobs. Unison, T&G Unite, GMB, Amicus and UCATT made the call on 9 April. They will stage pickets at refuse depots, schools, libraries, offices and care homes on each morning before joining a rally in Victoria Square at noon on Thursday April 24. Many years back, local government employers and unions agreed a Single Status “framework” at national level, to put blue-collar and white-collar workers into a single pay structure. But each local authority...

Motion for a special conference of Unite

[Activists in the Amicus bit of Unite may wish to omit the reference to the TGWU Biennial Delegate Conference] We note the statement from the General Executive Committee put to the Biennial Delegate Conference of the TGWU section of Unite in July 2007. > It called for "an end to the manipulation of [Labour Party] conference by the party leadership and the ignoring of conference decisions by ministers". It also said that "the right of party conference to make party policy needs to be upheld and respected." We further note with dismay the decisions taken at the 2007 Labour Party conference...

Remploy workers to strike 6-7 February

The Remploy factories in Aintree and Birkenhead (CCU) are taking strike action on 6th and 7th February. According to Unite, which together with the GMB organises Remploy workers: The Remploy Consortium of Trade Unions (Unite, GMB and Community) has vowed to fight the closure of 28 Remploy factories, including Aintree and Birkenhead and the jobs of its’ employees. Remploy is the UK’s biggest employer of disabled people and employs over 5,000 disabled workers in 82 factories nationally... 73% of workers taking part in the ballot at Aintree voted in favour of strike action and 100% of workers...

Metronet: Unions Name Strike Dates

Following the massive Yes vote in their ballots, RMT and the two smaller unions TSSA and Unite have named strike dates on Metronet. RMT and Unite will strike for two lots of 72 hours - from 18:00 on Monday September 3 until 17:59 on Thursday September 6; and from 18:00 on Monday September 10 and 17...

Refuse workers in Salford strike over casual labour

On 27 June refuse workers in Salford mounted a 24-hour strike action in protest at the council's exploitation of agency staff. Agency workers are paid less than their full-time colleagues and have no guarantee of work. Salford Council claims that it needs casual labour to fill in when full time staff are absent, although clearly this excuses neither their two-tier pay structure nor the fact that many workers are long-term casual staff who are relied upon by the council as an alternative to hiring enough permanent workers. Over 140 full time dustmen, recycling teams and road sweepers voted for...

Super-union sells strikers short

by Dale Street STRIKERS at the Sunvic Controls factory in Uddingston near Glasgow, which manufactures controls for domestic and commercial central heating systems, returned to work last Monday (4 June) after ten weeks. The 42 employees, mostly women, and all of them members of Amicus and the TGWU (which have now merged into Unite), had been out on official strike since 21 March in a dispute over flexible working and lay-off pay. In the 14 months of negotiations which had preceded the strike, management had insisted on new employment terms which would allow them to enforce short-time working...

Case for a no vote

The question on Jim Denham’s voting paper, and on mine, in the recent TGWU-Amicus ballot, was “do you approve the Instrument of Amalgamation?”, not “are you, in general, in favour of a merger of TGWU and Amicus?” I favoured voting no because I do not approve the Instrument of Amalgamation. Jim does not approve the Instrument, either. He believes that “the creation of a rank-and-file controlled accountable industrial structure must be our central task”. The scheme outlined by the Instrument of Amalgamation is anything but. So, if anyone is taking a paradoxical, contrary-to-common-sense view...

Tony, Why Don't You Back John McDonnell? An open letter to Tony Woodley

To Tony Woodley, Joint General Secretary of TGWU-AMICUS Dear Bro Woodley, "Should [Labour] party policy be put into practice by [Labour] government, and if not, why not?", you asked in your article in the Guardian on 5 March . "For example, it is Labour’s policy to return the railways to public ownership... The party conference has repeatedly voted for limits on the use of the private finance initiative... "Labour delegates voted for a radical reform of employment law... Labour has voted for equal funding treatment for council housing". As you well know, the Blair-Brown government does just...

Burslem defies victimisation

By Chris Leary WORKERS at the Burslem sorting office in Staffordshire are in the process of balloting for further strike action against the sacking of a long standing worker after a previous strike. The ballot – 99% yes to further action! – concerns the misapplication of conduct procedure by Royal Mail managers. The sacked worker was first suspended for eight weeks on the testimony of just two managers for eight weeks. Andrew Plant, branch secretary of CWU Midland No. 7 branch which covers Burslem, told Solidarity that since the ballot for action was announced, Royal Mail managers have moved...

This website uses cookies, you can find out more and set your preferences here.
By continuing to use this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.