Workers' Liberty

The British Airways cabin crew dispute is hugely important. BA boss Willie Walsh’s attempts to deregulate, de-skill and casualise the BA workforce will not be an isolated attack — it will be part of a widespread, generalised offensive by bosses to break the backs of well-unionised workforces that have won stable pay and conditions.

The election of a single General Secretary for the Unite union — to replace current joint Secretaries Derek Simpson and Tony Woodley — will take place in September and October, with the results announced in November. All three main contenders say they are on the “left”.

Morale is getting quite low amongst cabin crew workers. They’re being bombarded by emails and phonecalls from managers, as well as being denounced by senior politicians in the press.

Cleaners who work in the City of London offices of the giant international bank UBS [Union Banque Suisse] are finding their terms and conditions coming under attack as they are transferred from one cleaning contractor, Mitie to another, Lancaster.

UPDATE: Strike dates have now been set for Saturday 20 March (for three days) and Saturday 27 March (for four days).

In an act which again defies right-wing mythology about workers being passive and unprepared to take action, cabin crew working for British Airways have voted by an overwhelming majority — on a huge turnout — to take strike action against proposed changes to their contract. 81% of workers voted to strike, on a turnout of nearly 80%.

About 70 porters at the second biggest airport in the UK staged a solid two-day strike over Christmas.

Members of the BASSA branch of the Unite union, which represents cabin crew working for British Airways, began re-balloting for strike action over pay freezes and job cuts on 25 January, with results due back on 22 February.

This year the two million trade unionists in Unite will get to elect a single general secretary who will replace Derek Simpson and Tony Woodley in 2011.

According to an industrial relations lawyer quoted by the Financial Times on 18 December, "wildcat strikes are now possible", in response to a court's decision to ban the official strike by BA workers

Members of the BASSA branch of the Unite union, which represents cabin crew working for British Airways, will begin re-balloting for strike action over pay freezes and job cuts on January 25th, with results due back on February 22nd.

More than 250 warehouse workers at Superdrug's national distribution centre, in South Elmsall in Yorkshire, are now in their second week of strike action.

Engineering construction workers have voted to reject a new two-year pay-and-conditions deal despite a recommendation to accept both from union officials and from their national shop stewards' committee.

Another migrant worker-militant has been forced out of their job at a cleaning company.

The Unite and RMT unions led a go-slow of over 1000 black cabs in London on 10th September in protest at a “schizophrenic killer” being granted permission to sit “The Knowledge” exam and qualify for a black cab license.

The threat of strike action by engineering construction workers in GMB and Unite unions has won an improved offer on pay and conditions from employers.

United Left, the new united “broad left” in Unite, held its hustings to decide who should be its candidate for the post of General Secretary in Manchester on 5 September.

For a downloadable PDF of this bulletin, see below.

For a democratic, fighting union!
Workers' Liberty Unite members' bulletin for Unite United Left meeting, 5 September 2009

Stop begging and dare to fight!
An open letter to Tony Woodley and Len McCluskey

On Saturday 18 July around 3,000 people marched through Redcar under the banner “Save our Steel”.

Refuse collectors in Edinburgh are on an unofficial work-to-rule, and Unite are balloting for strike action.

On Friday 10 July drivers for First South Yorkshire (part of the multinational First Group) struck for the first time on a ballot over pay.

Activists from the RMT union, which mainly covers rail, bus, and sea workers, joined the Vestas workers outside the factory from very early on.

Solidarity strikes have spread across Britain to beat the union-busting attempted by oil multinational Total and its contractors on their construction site at the Lindsey Oil Refinery site in Lincolnshire.

Many thousands of workers have struck over a principle, though the immediate bread-and-butter issue concerns just 51 workers.

Rob Williams, Unite convenor at the Linamar car plant in Swansea, has been re-instated following his sacking by the company last month. Rob was sacked for his record of defending members’ interests and building solidarity with the Visteon struggle.

The Unite union has called a national ballot on industrial action in the engineering construction industry over revision of the national union agreement for that industry. Meanwhile, on 11 June, construction workers at the Lindsey Oil Refinery - centre of the wave of walk-out in January/ February - have struck.

Bob Sutton spoke to two Midlands carworkers about the jobs fight, the construction workers’ action, and the environmental issues in their industry.

New strikes over jobs and union agreements have broken out in engineering construction similar to those at the end of January and the start of February this year.

According to Contract Journal (19 May), the dispute started with 50 laggers walking out at the South Hook Liquified Natural Gas terminal in Milford Haven.

Activists from Nottinghamshire Stop the BNP returned to the streets in their campaign against the British National Party. Leafleting door-to-door in the Beeston area of Nottingham, a small group of anti-fascists found themselves on the same front steps as the BNP, who’d covered the area a short time before.

There were some definite positives to the 16 May “March for Jobs” organised by Unite in central Birmingham.

The turnout — up to 8,000 people, mostly rank-and-file workers — was bigger than many marchers were expecting. Unite seeming to have done a decent job of mobilising in workplaces. There were contingents from the Longbridge plant in Birmingham, as well as from steelworkers in Teesside, Visteon workers and Latin American cleaners from London. Other unions, most notably Unison, were also visibly present.

UNITE: You might think the leaders of a union whose members occupied the Visteon factories and took wildcat strike action in engineering construction would be pre-occupied with struggle.