Defending jobs

These are the demands adopted by the Lindsey Oil Refinery construction strikers at a mass meeting on 2 February: * No victimisation of workers taking solidarity action. * All workers in UK to be covered by NAECI Agreement. * Union controlled registering of unemployed and locally skilled union members, with nominating rights as work becomes available. * Government and employer investment in proper training/apprenticeships for new generation of construction workers - fight for a future for young people. * All Immigrant labour to be unionised. * Trade Union assistance for immigrant workers -...

"We want to be careful with the nationalism, lads, so that things don't turn nasty. I've got nothing against the Italian workers as such, they're just doing a job, putting food on the table for their families. "They're not Without Papers, as they are EU citizens and are legally allowed to work here. Besides, this is racist. Many of us have worked abroad - Germany, Spain, Middle East - did we think or care about jobs in those countries? Getting at the workers is just going to give us a bad reputation, and turn the public against us. "The problem is with the tenders, Total management and...

Wildcat strike action has spread across the UK in support of a strike by construction workers at the Lindsey oil refinery in Lincolnshire over an Italian firm getting a contract for part of the refitting work on the refinery. The Italian firm will use its permanent workforce of Italian workers. Rapid, rank-and-file organised action is needed in the current economic crisis, where thousands of jobs are being lost every day. We need industrial and political action to oppose job cuts, stop casualisation and the driving down of wages and conditions and demand what the labour movement has called...

Thousands of jobs are being cut each week. Two recent struggles show that even when bosses are determined to shut down operations, workers can still fight back. In December, workers at Republic Windows and Doors, in Chicago, occupied their factory for six days. In late November, workers at the Calcast car parts factory in Northern Ireland also occupied after the bosses had said the factory was closing down. In both cases, the workers won better pay-offs rather than reversal of the closures. But both cases show that workers have bargaining power even in the endgame. Even if bosses want to shut...

Every now and again, American workers issue a blunt reminder to the bosses, and to themselves, that the steady and moderate tone transmitted by their nation's great public-relations dream-machine can never fully lull them to sleep. The factory occupation at Republic Windows and Doors in Chicago on December 5th emerged as the most salient of recent reminders, no doubt owing to the widespread opposition to the federal bailout of Wall Street. For radicals and trade-unionists and the 260 rank and filers of UE Local 1110 who, to be sure, lost their jobs, the sit-in must be counted a victory. After...

For unions to be slack about fighting for higher wages is one thing. For unions to campaign for lower wages is quite another. But that is the new proposal from GMB general secretary Paul Kenny, a supposed left-winger. "It is difficult", so Kenny told the Financial Times (15/12/08), "for union officials to stand up in front of members and recommend that they should lose pay". But Kenny is not daunted. "It is much easier just to say 'No, no, no' to employers. But it must be an adult dialogue... "We must consider all the available tools in the box to keep companies viable and save jobs". The...

Workers at Republic Windows and Doors in Chicago (who are organised by as small “rank and file oriented” union, United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of) have now approved an agreement with their company and the Bank of America. The workers had occupied the factor for five days at the end of December. It is a partial victory. The settlement which totals $1.75 million will provide the workers with: * Eight weeks of pay they are owed • Two months of continued health coverage and, • Pay for all accrued and unused vacation. But the workers have not stopped their plant from closing...

On 27 October Luton Trades Union Council sponsored a meeting, “No Pay Cuts For Down Days!”, in support of the 1200 workers at the General Motors van factory in Luton. The way out, said the call for the meeting, was for workers “to join up with other unions to build a movement to fight redundancies, cuts in pay, house repossessions, and to start to build a world that does not rely on the waste and madness of capitalism to determine our future”. GM is shutting down the factory for two weeks in the run-up to Christmas. For previous down days the workers had got only a statutory £20; for this...

CIVIL SERVICE JOB SECURITY PCS members are currently being balloted on a job security agreement struck with the Civil Service. This agreement, called the protocols, is the result of long running union agitation over job security. Members should vote in favour, but be clear as to limitations and weaknesses. The original union campaign was for a no compulsory redundancy guarantee; the protocols fall short of that. The guarantee would not have saved jobs; it just would have guaranteed that the jobs run down (which still continues) was achieved without overt compulsion. This agreement means that...