GMB

General, Municipal and Boilermakers' Union

Vince Cable not welcome at GMB congress

A speech by Lib Dem Business Secretary Vince Cable to the GMB union congress (5-9 June), was punctuated by boos, heckling and cat-calls. Later, the congress resolved to organise, and campaign for a yes vote in, a ballot of its public sector members for industrial action on pensions: not in time for 30 June, but maybe in the autumn. Cable had trailed the possibility of further anti-trade union legislation. Two delegates displayed a banner reading “Vince Cable – not welcome. Stop attacking workers’ rights”. This is not a mass rank-and-file revolt, but it is not insignificant. The culture of the...

Behind the Southern Cross scandal

Southern Cross was bought up by a private equity firm called Blackstone; they then sold off all of Southern Cross’s property — that is, the actual care homes themselves. The homes were sold off to all sorts of private companies, including the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), which is owned by the Qatari royal family. These private companies then rented the property back to Southern Cross at extortionate rates. QIA has off-shore accounts, so it wasn’t even paying tax on all that rent it was making. That situation was necessarily unsustainable. But when the cuts hit, funding for care was...

My life at work: Organising in retail

Until recently I worked as a shop assistant at Superdrug in Egham, Surrey. I’m at university so can’t work as much as I need to to make ends meet. Egham is a small town and the shop is even smaller. The pay, even in comparison to other high street shops, is dire; a few pence above the minimum wage. The conditions are not much better; a tiny, underequipped tea room with nowhere to store belongings. This may sound inconsequential, but it’s an annoyance for everyone who works there. Superdrug workers, particularly the under-21s, recently faced an attack on pay and conditions. Based on the company...

GMB and Welfare to Work

A report produced by the University of Portsmouth and accountancy firm PKF, “Welfare to Work in the 21st Century”, is based in part, it says, on interviews with “23 clients from difficult to employ groups: 18 of who were identified via Kennedy Scott and 5 via the GMB”. Kennedy Scott is an employment training provider currently delivering the New Deal programme for the Department for Work and Pensions in London and the South East. The report recommends that “the DWP pilot a US welfare-to-work programme developed by America Works". The same US workfare company is known for the draconian regime...

Saltend workers in court protest

Saltend workers demonstrated outside Hull Magistrates’ Court hearing on 17 May for GMB national officer Phil Whitehurst who was arrested on a picket on 4 May. Whitehurst had been taking part in the regular pickets over the lockout of 430 workers from the failed £200m Vivergo Fuels Ltd bio-ethanol fuel plant project. A group of about 30 workers and trade unionists protested outside the Court before going inside for Whitehurst’s hearing. Entering to a round of applause, he was charged under section 14 of the Public Order act, used by the police to limit the number of people at a protest to...

BP locks out engineering construction workers

A senior GMB union official was arrested on 4 May as police stepped up their attempts to break up protests by locked-out workers at the Saltend biofuels plant construction site. Workers have been demonstrating since 14 March, when their employer — Redhall Engineer Solutions — had its contract with Vivergo, the BP-led consortium building the plant, terminated. Although Redhall told the workers they should turn up for work as normal, and that they would be transferred via TUPE into employment by Vivergo or by another contractor, they found themselves locked-out and without work. Workers employed...

Industrial news in brief

GMB members at Nottinghamshire County Council have voted 6 to 1 in favour of industrial action in an indicative ballot. A full ballot for strike action will now follow. Workers at the council are facing a pay cut equivalent to 12%, comprised of several individual cuts. Many of these cuts are already in place. Unison members at the council have already taken strike action, and although it comes later than might be hoped, the GMB’s decision to move towards action as well may contribute towards breaking the perception of the GMB as the “no-strike” union in many public sector workplaces. London...

Industrial news in brief

A wildcat strike at a BP plant near Hull has forced management to back down on plans for unilateral redundancies. The GMB and Unite members, opposed attempts by Redhall (an engineering construction contractor operating on the site) to impose redundancies that were outside the framework of the nationally-bargained collective agreement for the industry. 400 workers walked off the job and blocked the main road into the site, backing up rush-hour traffic. The strike marks a further flare in militancy in an industry that saw enormous unofficial strikes over similar attempts by bosses to disregard...

Industrial news in brief

On Friday 18 February 30 people demonstrated outside St Thomas’ hospital in Westminster in solidarity with 72 migrant workers who were “disappeared” (arrested without anyone's knowledge) by the UK Border Agency last month. Migrant workers occupy an extremely precarious place in the European labour market; they experience high levels of exploitation and the constant threat of being deported, which very effectively dissuades them for organising for better conditions. Raids and disappearances are quite common UK Border Agency practice. The labour movement should know no borders. So it is...

GMB backs NCAFC demonstration

Another demonstration is being planned against the increase in student tuition fees, with organisers hoping that tens of thousands of people will take part in the protest in the new year. The latest national protest will be on January 29 in central London, following a wave of demonstrations in recent weeks which have led to a number of arrests and controversy over police tactics. The Education Activist Network and the National Campaign Against Cuts & Fees have written to trade unions seeking their support for next year's demo. Officials of the two groups said recent events had shown the...

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