Unite announces timescale for construction strike ballot at power
stations and petrochemical sites
17th July 2009
Unite, the UK’s largest union, is to ballot its members for
strike action at seven major power and petrochemical plants across
Britain. The ballot will run from 11 August and end on 1 September
with any agreed industrial action following shortly after.
Unite, together with the GMB, is to ballot its members because
the employer’s body, the Engineering Construction Industry
Association (ECIA) has rejected the unions' key demands for
improvements to the National Agreement for the Engineering
Construction Industry (NAECI), which would deliver fairness and
long term stability to the sector. Although talks are continuing,
the unions have lost confidence that the ECIA is serious in
addressing the union’s grievances.
Unite is balloting members working in the building and
maintenance of Britain's power stations and petrochemical sites.
The sites targeted are: BP FPS Grangemouth and Ineos Grangemouth in
Scotland; Sellafield, Shell UK Stanlow and Staythorpe RWE in
England; and Chevron Pembroke and Aberthaw in Wales.
The ballot follows months of industrial unrest and unofficial
action at sites across the country due to unscrupulous employers
refusing local workers access to apply for work and undercutting
the NAECI agreement.
Unite assistant general secretary Les Bayliss said: “Unite has
given employers every opportunity to come to an agreement over the
union’s demands, which are fair and will deliver stability within
engineering construction.
“The NAECI agreement has delivered industrial peace for nearly
three decades. Unfortunately, some bad employers are cherry picking
the agreement or ignoring it completely. As a result, for the first
time in many years, there is widespread unrest across this sector.
It’s time for employers to get back round the table and agree a
fair way forward.”
One of the key areas of concern to Unite is the lack of
transparency surrounding the application of the agreement – a
problem highlighted in the ACAS report into the wildcat action at
the Lindsey Oil Refinery in February.
Furthermore, in March, the ECIA was forced to admit that overseas
workers at the Isle of Grain were being underpaid by over 30 per
cent - £10.01 an hour instead of £14.00. This information only came
to light because a Polish construction worker allowed Unite to
translate his contract of employment revealing the underpayment.
Under the agreement there is no effective mechanism for unions to
check if employers are keeping to the agreement.
Unite is also calling on the government to introduce a more
robust and fair interpretation of the EU Posted Workers directive.
Unite believes the government has not enacted the proper
interpretation of the directive, which should allow posted
workers to be covered by national agreements.
So far the only protection the UK government has given to posted
workers is the national minimum wage. This is just a fraction of
the rates of pay skilled workers covered by the NAECI should earn
and allows for the legal undercutting of the agreement.
Unite national officer Tom Hardacre said: "As the government has
failed to implement the Posted Workers directive in the way it
should have done, we are now left to pick up the pieces. We
therefore ask the government to implement the directive straight
away.
“We are also calling on the government to act immediately and
persuade the national employers and the energy providers that we
need a transparent, robust agreement to give the industry
confidence going forward, and to support the building of the
huge programme of new power stations that the UK needs. "
ENDS
For more information contact Mark Di- Toro (07918 640 579) or
Ashraf Choudhury (07980 224 761) in the Unite press office
Notes
The join unions' demands are:
- a register of unemployed workers in the industry which
the employers must use to fill vacancies;
- a transparent, effective auditing system to monitor ‘Blue
Book’ rates and other benefits that apply to all;
- a pay rise;
- twelve paid trips home for all workers regardless of
where they come from;
- ability for union full time officials to instigate
grievance procedure at any site;
- procedure to ensure all workers have appropriate skills.
The National Agreement for the Engineering Construction Industry
(NAECI) has operated since 1981. In recent times some contractors
at Staythorpe, the Isle of Grain CHP and Lindsey Oil Refinery have
refused to employ any UK labour, bringing in their entire workforce
from overseas.
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