Unite

Tanker drivers' struggle

After drivers working for logistics firm Wincanton took two rounds of seven-day strike action in February, the Unite union will ballot 2,000 fuel tanker drivers for national strike action. Drivers across the fuel haulage industry are facing attacks on jobs and conditions. Unite wants to end what it calls the “contract merry-go-round and beat-the-clock culture” now endemic in the industry. Companies where workers will be balloted are Wincanton, DHL, Hoyer, BP, J.W Suckling, Norbert Dentressangle and Turners, accounting for 90% of distribution to the UK’s petrol station forecourts. Unite...

Stagecoach drivers win

A months-long battle between bus drivers and bosses at Stagecoach in South Yorkshire has concluded after workers voted to accept management’s latest pay offer. Workers will receive a pay rise to £9.05 per hour and £130 back pay. The big concession in the deal is the back pay, which was not included in a previous offer rejected by the workers. Tony Rushforth, Unite secretary at the Barnsley depot, said: “I am very proud of the members who refused to give in and who stood solid to the end.” “All this amounts to some fantastic demonstrations of solidarity.” Stagecoach was initially intransigent...

Locked-out workers picket factory

Workers at the Mayr-Melnhof Packaging (MMP) plant in Bootle, near Liverpool, are maintaining pickets of the factory after bosses locked them out during a dispute over redundancies. Managers at the plant responded to an official strike over job losses by locking out the entire workforce. The plant’s closure has already hit MMP’s customer’s supply chains, with production of Kellogg’s flagship brand Cornflakes reportedly suffering due to the lack of packaging production. Unite leader Len McCluskey joined the picket line, saying he was here to demonstrate solidarity and to bring the full support...

Sparks win as contractors cave

The attempt by the UK’s major construction contractors to impose a new collective agreement for mechanical and electrical construction workers has collapsed after the remaining six companies followed industry leader Balfour Beatty Engineering Services in performing an embarrassing u-turn. The “Building Engineering Services National Agreement” (BESNA), the proposed replacement for the existing Joint Industry Board, is now decisively dead-in-the-water after employers’ organisation the Heating and Ventilating Contractors Association (HVCA) agreed to negotiations with Unite, the union representing...

NHS: nice job; nice friend

Mark Simmonds, the Tory MP who will speak at the 29 February “Winning Business in the New NHS” event, and a shadow health minister while in opposition, gets £50,000 a year for ten hours a month “consulting” from Circle, who on 1 February became the first private health care firm to take over an NHS hospital (Hinchingbrooke, in Cambridgeshire). Andrew Lansley, currently Tory health minister, got £21,000 from John Nash, boss of private health firm Care UK, in November 2009, to pay for Lansley’s private office when in opposition. Health Alarm protest The new “Health Alarm” mobilising committee is...

Rank-and-file action forces Balfour Beatty u-turn

A day after the High Court refused to grant Balfour Beatty Engineering Services an injunction to stop a planned strike by Unite members, BBES have performed a spectacular and embarrassing u-turn and backed down from their plans to impose new contracts for electrical and mechanical construction workers which would have involved pay cuts of up to 35%. Balfour Beatty was one of a group of eight construction industry giants, representing over half of the work in the UK, who in summer 2011 announced plans to unilaterally leave the Joint Industry Board (the union-negotiated collective agreement...

Council workers strike against cuts

Workers at Cheshire West and Chester Council staged a three-hour stoppage on Tuesday 14 February to mark the beginning of a campaign of industrial action that will involve selective strikes in coming weeks. The workers – members of Unite, Unison and GMB – are attempting to force management to abandon a plan to introduce new terms and conditions, which unions say will reduce overtime pay and weekend allowance, by dismissing and re-engaging staff. GMB organiser Graham McDermott said: “The aim of this industrial action is to oppose the council’s decision to impose changes to terms and conditions...

Sparks sweat on court ruling

As Solidarity went to press, electricians working for Balfour Beatty Engineering Services were still awaiting the outcome of a High Court ruling as to whether their latest strike ballot – which returned a 66% majority for action – is legal. If the Court rules in favour of the workers’ union, Unite, the earliest conceivable date for an official strike would be 21 February. A strike committee elected from BBES stewards agreed that any walkout would be followed by rolling and selective action as well as action short of a strike, including an overtime ban. The sparks’ rank-and-file committee have...

Unite and PCS to merge?

Over the past months there have been persistent rumours of a merger between the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) and Unite, Britain’s largest union. Nothing has been said to members about this possibility, yet the rumours persist. Possibly one reason for the persistence is the realisation that PCS will be broke in the next few years if nothing fundamentally changes. PCS currently has a “cost structure” (i.e. the number of full-time officers [FTOs] and officials and their salary levels) for a union of 320,000 members when it has closer to 250,000 members. The recent national strikes...

Tanker drivers extend strike

Fuel tanker drivers employed by logistics company Wincanton supplying Jet petrol station forecourts across the UK will extend their strike action to Thursday 16 February. Depots at Immingham (near Hull), Kingsbury (in Staffordshire) and Stockton-on-Tees will be picketed as workers take on their bosses over a number of terms and conditions grievances. The extension of the strike to 16 February will take the action into a third week. Unite officer Matt Draper said: “Wincanton’s failure to offer these highly skilled drivers security over their futures and their pay and conditions means that the...

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