Construction workers to demonstrate at Farringdon tube station over
attack on pay and skills
15 November 2011
Unite, the UK’s biggest union, has been informed that
construction workers will be protesting outside Farringdon tube
station tomorrow (Wednesday 16 November) as the fight against the
employer-led attack on their pay and skills continues.
Hundreds of members of the country’s largest trade union, Unite,
who face a pay cut of more than 30 per cent will be staging their
protest at Farringdon tube station (at the junction of Charterhouse
Street and Farringdon Road) between 6.30am and 8am.
The workers, who have staged a series of demonstrations at major
construction sites across the country in recent weeks, are furious
over the plans of five rogue employers, including ringleader -
Balfour Beatty - and Crown House, a major contractor at the
Farringdon station site, to impose semi-skilled grades into the
mechanical and electrical sector.
Crown House has added fuel to the flames by stating that it
wants to replace the jobs of skilled craftsmen with teams made up
of only one craftsman and eight semi-skilled workers who will earn
a third less.
In a move set to inflame the anger of workers still further
Crown House is refusing to recognise Unite elected shop stewards on
its sites.
Unite regional officer, Harry Cowap, said: “London construction
workers are determined to defend their livelihoods against this
unprecedented attack on their skills and pay.
“Thousands of construction workers have been demonstrating for
weeks outside construction sites across the capital in a warning to
employers that they will not be cowed by bully-boy tactics or
accept this attack on their trades.”
Workers in five of the seven breakaway companies have been
written to by their managers with a stark choice - sign new
contracts on much inferior pay, and terms and conditions or face
the sack on 7 December.
The employers want to withdraw from five long-held agreements
and replace them with a new agreement which will allow employers to
introduce semi-skilled grades and dictate rather than negotiate on
pay, holiday entitlement, overtime, and what constitutes away
work.
But five of the seven have upped the stakes. Balfour Beatty,
Crown House Technologies, Spie Matthew Hall, Shepherd Engineering
Services and NG Bailey have issued Unite with legal notice of their
intention to dismiss, with notice, thousands of employees before
re-engaging them on new inferior contracts.
This is not a call for unofficial strike action by Unite. It is
Unite’s understanding that those involved in the demonstrations are
doing so outside of work hours to avoid any suggestion that this is
unofficial strike action.
ENDS
Notes to news editors:
For further information please contact Unite communication
officer Liane Groves on 07793 661657 and Unite regional officer
Vince Passfield on 07931 559 475
The seven major break-away contractors currently involved
are:
Balfour Beatty Engineering Services Limited; N G Bailey Building
Services; Crown House Technologies; Gratte Brothers; Spie Matthew
Hall; Shepherd Engineering Services (SES); T.Clarke PLC.
Unite has been told by these major employers that they will no
longer be party to the following agreements: JIB (Joint Industry
Board for the Electrical Contracting Industry); SJIB (Scottish
Joint Industry Board for the Electrical Contracting Industry);
JIB-PMES (Joint Industry Board for Plumbing Mechanical Engineering
Services in England and Wales); SNIJIB (Scottish and Northern
Ireland Joint Industry Board for the Plumbing Industry); HVAC
(National Agreement for the Heating, Ventilating, Air Conditioning,
Piping and Domestic Engineering Industry); MPA (Major Projects
Agreement).
