The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain
Week commencing 11th October 2024
The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain
Week commencing 11th October 2024
The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain
Every week the Personnel Today website updates a list of industrial disputes. However, this has not been done for a fortnight. The reason given in its 26th September update was that “Almost all major industrial disputes have now been resolved following a tumultuous period from 2022 to mid-2024”, in particular: “Since the Labour government came to power on 5 July 2024, pay offers for resident doctors, rail workers and elsewhere in the public sector have been accepted by trade union members”.
This is confirmed by the UK Strike Action Calendar which has only one action recorded for this month, and nothing confirmed for November and December. The one action recorded involves about 20 cleaners and caterers at the East Kilbride office of the Foreign Office reported last week. Whatever the outcome, this dispute will not greatly change the balance of class forces in Britain. Even the London Cable Car strike, also mentioned last week has been called off following an improved pay offer.
The fact that the Calendar is not complete and misses some such as the RMT’s strike action at the Royal Fleet Auxiliary last weekend does not greatly alter the overall picture that major strikes, involving tens of thousands of workers, have largely been settled, at least for the time being.
However, that does not mean that the working class has not been idle while we await with bated breath the much heralded Employment Rights Bill which will no doubt be watered down from the vague pre-election promises. There are plenty of smaller struggles taking place, some of which we have mentioned in previous weeks.
The Staff of Life
At Eaglescliffe on Teesside 150 workers at Tetley Tea, which produces 30 per cent of Britain’s tea, are continuing strike action over low pay, which has fallen dramatically in real terms in recent years. Tetley’s is owned by the same Tata company which has just closed down the South Wales steel industry.
The strike took on a sharper turn when Management called the police claiming that a largely female picket line was “intimidating”. As the police said this was nonsense Tetley’s launched an injunction for trespass.
GMB’s organiser, Paul Clark, said that “these women work their fingers to the bone for this company, providing the UK with its favourite cup of tea. But they’re paid a pittance, and it is just not right. Not only that but, now bosses are trying to sue them for exercising their legal right to strike”.
He also condemned Tetley’s management for trying to intimidate workers instead of addressing their concerns over pay, claiming that bosses are spending money on “trumpedup” legal claims rather than resolving the pay dispute. The matter will be going to court as the New Worker goes to print.
Tata claims it cannot afford decent wages because “it must remain competitive to support the factory’s future growth”.
Also, in the food and drink sector workers at the Wrexham-based ready meals manufacturer Oscar Mayer are fighting against fire and rehire policies. They have taken their protests to Manchester where both their owners and a major customer, the Co-op are based.
The 550 workers are opposing plans to remove some paid breaks, reduce other breaks and eradicate any enhanced payments and days off in lieu for working bank holidays.
If workers do not accept these changes, Oscar Mayer is threatening to fire and rehire the workers on new contracts if they do not voluntarily accept them. This will cost workers about £3,000 a year.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said “Oscar Mayer is dragging its own name through the mud with its despicable behaviour towards these workers. Unite will ensure that every organisation associated with Oscar Mayer, as well as the public who buy its produce, knows what the company is trying to do. Unite will not stop until Oscar Mayer reverses its abhorrent fire and rehire plans.”
Oscar Mayer is one of the major ready meal manufacturers in the UK. Claims by the union that Oscar Mayer hasn’t engaged in consultation with it have been refuted by the company. They do not deny they are demanding such sacrifices from their workers but they claim they will offer more time off in lieu.
The company claims the cuts “are necessary to protect the long-term sustainability of our business and the jobs we provide in the local community”. It also claims its intended cuts are already the norm in the industry. There might be a shred of truth in this claim. In addition to the Co-op Oscar Mayer supplies Aldi, Asda, Greggs, Sainsbury’s Tesco and posh Waitrose. All these make their profits by squeezing suppliers. But that is no reason why workers should suffer. Unions should be pushing for the worst to match the best, and opposing efforts to reduce workers to the lowest level.
Across the country in Spalding, Lincolnshire 700 workers at the Bakkavor plant which also makes salads and ready meals for supermarkets continue their strike.
Ninety-five per cent of the Unite members at Bakkavor rejected a 6 per cent pay offer. Management then offered a 7.8 per cent pay rise to its lowest paid workers, and 6.4 per cent to all other workers. It then offered a further £50 as a one-off payment.
But this is still well short of the union’s just demands. Unite regional secretary Paresh Patel says “this company has made £55 million in profit over the first half of this year. But it has offered a pittance to our members, those very people that have made sure that this company delivers and succeeds for its customers. They have walked away from negotiations and have limited the terms of the negotiation. We’re going to stand here solidly until we win the day”
Real Slavery
At least these workers get some actual wages. At a branch of the famous healthfood chain, McDonald’s, and at Speciality Flatbread Ltd 16 workers were treated as slaves for seven years.
At last, six members of a family who ran a human trafficking network from the Czech Republic have been convicted. They trafficked their victims from their home country, targeting vulnerable people with drug problems. They were forced to work at the McDonald’s in Caxton, Cambridgeshire and at the Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire and Tottenham factories.
The fact that McDonald’s is a franchise allowed the traffickers to brutally exploit their victims for so long. The local bosses paid their victims the minimum wage in theory, but kept most for themselves, housing their victims in an unheated caravan. In stark contrast they bought luxury cars and posh houses for themselves back home.
Nobody seemed concerned that four of the victims’ wages were being paid into a single account run by the gang, which is always a clear sign something dodgy is going on. The nine victims at the pitta factory lived in the same small Enfield house in north London, some in an outhouse. Hours of 70–100 hours a week were the norm at McDonald’s.
Former independent anti-slavery commissioner, Dame Sara Thornton, later told the BBC that “it really concerns me that so many red flags were missed, and that maybe the companies didn’t do enough to protect vulnerable workers”. What a surprise, that is how capitalism works. It is reasonable to assume that neither place was unionised.
One of the victims said that eight years ago he was lured to Britain with the false promise of a well-paid job in the UK, where he could at the time work legally.
Instead, his exploiters, led by Ernest and Zdenek Drevenak, stole his passport and threatened him with violence if he tried to escape, even warning a return to his native town would be no refuge.
Apart from the gang, the victim declared that “I do feel partially exploited by McDonald’s because they didn’t act…I thought if I was working for McDonald’s, that they would be a little bit more cautious, that they will notice it”.
After being exposed McDonald’s piously claimed “it cares deeply about all employees” and promised that it would work with franchisees and would “play our part alongside government, NGOs and wider society to help combat the evils of modern slavery”. So that makes it all right. The Bakers, Food & Allied Workers Union might have a different view on that.
Her ladyship also decried supermarkets for not doing “pretty thorough due diligence”, hopefully adding that they normally “take much greater care about their own brand products because that’s their reputation that’s on the line”. The bottom line is more important.
Asda said it made three site visits to the pitta factory, but focused solely on food safety, and had stopped using the factory in 2020. Tesco also pulled out after receiving warnings from the anti-slavery charity Unseen. The Co-op said it made “a number” of unannounced inspections, but never noticed anything amiss.
While the 2015 Modern Slavery Act requires larger companies such as McDonald’s and supermarkets to publish annual statements outlining what they will do to tackle the issue, the law lets the smaller factories off the hook from reporting.
Fridges, Houses, Aeroplanes and Microbes
Perhaps it is just as well that these ready meals strikes are underway. At the Bradford based EPTA, who make large fridges and freezers for shops, workers are about to go on strike which means that no refrigerated shelves will be a problem rather than empty shelves.
In the second half of this month about 70 members of Unite will be taking six days of strike action after rejecting a four per cent offer. In recent years their pay differential over the minimum wage has whittled away for their skilled work building painting, testing and packing industrial fridges and freezers.
Unite regional officer Neil Whitaker said “strike action will inevitably cause severe disruption for EPTA’s customers but this dispute is entirely of the company’s own making. It has had every chance to make a fair offer that recognises the skills of our members but has failed to do so.”
On Merseyside 200 housing workers employed by Livv Housing are taking strike action in an effort to reverse years of real pay cuts. Having rejected a five per cent pay offer and made no progress in further negotiations, strike action takes place on Wednesday 16 and 23, on which days an overtime ban will also be in place.
Sharon Graham said “Livv Housing should be ashamed of itself. This is an organisation that is fully able to provide its workers with a decent pay offer but has chosen not to”.
The union warns that the strike action will disrupt all of Livv’s functions including repairs, maintenance and customer services, particularly emergency call outs.
Livv looks after 13,000 houses and flats. In theory it is a not-for-profit organisation but it made a profit of £40,000 per employee last year.
John Sheppard, a Unite regional officer said “strike action will inevitably cause severe disruption to Livv’s tenants but this dispute is entirely of the organisation’s own making. Livv has had every opportunity to resolve this dispute but has chosen not to.”
James Robinson, the Knowsley branch secretary of Unison, which is also involved in the dispute, said “These workers have faced significant cuts to their pay and conditions over the past ten years, all while the Livv Housing Group has seen its income go up and up”. He also pointed out that: “Livv Housing’s CEO Léann Hearne earns more than the prime minister, raking in more than £250,000 each year. Rents for tenants have also increased by 7.7 per cent”.
About 150 aerospace workers in Fareham, Hampshire, are stepping up their industrial action from next week until the middle of November. The fitters, technicians, supervisors and others are seeking a pay offer simply to bring them in line with industry averages.
The multi-billion company have refused to meet workers’ demands for a single year pay offer. Instead, the bosses have constantly tried to tie workers to a multi-year deal with a final offer of a four per cent pay rise for this year, 3.5 per cent next year and then three per cent for the third year.
Astonishing the highest skilled rate at Fareham is only £32,500 compared to the UK average wage of £35,700, the lowest in the UK aerospace industry.
Eaton Ltd’s parent company, Eaton Corporation, made a €3.5 billion profit in 2023 out of which directors pocketed almost €60 million.
Unite regional officer Mark Fisher said “this is a dispute of Eaton’s own making and it is their mess to clean up. They are refusing to negotiate and have left our members with no option but to take further strike action. Our members deserve a pay deal that reflects both their skills and in line with what other workers across the aerospace sector are earning. Eaton has refused to make a reasonable offer and will now witness the anger of its staff on the picket line”.
In the Yorkshire NHS specialist scientists at various hospitals have taken part in strike action over “sustainable workloads”. In all 60 members were involved. They included microbiologists at York Hospital and blood scientists at Scarborough and Bridlington hospitals. Routine tests were cancelled and non-urgent treatments delayed.
The strike was over workload issues which worsened when a biomedical laboratory at Scarborough Hospital was closed in 2022, leaving other already busy with even more work. Unite condemned the York and Scarborough trust for risking the safety of patients. Despite continual pleas from staff for additional recruitment, training and capacity building, the trust has ignored the issue. Staff are now so overworked that they are concerned that patient safety is at risk.
An anonymous staff member said “staff have consistently been treated with contempt by the management team. The dehumanisation and lack of care for the team, including unprofessional threats to force staff to work outside of existing contracts and well above all reasonable expectations, has led to chronic understaffing and failure to retain trained staff. The staff turnover figures speak for themselves on that front”.
Unite’s regional officer Chris Daly added “instead of recruiting more staff, the trust have closed laboratories and have overseen an exodus of highly trained senior scientists. This cannot be allowed to continue.”