Sowing the seeds of the fightback

From Morning Star, July 13th.....

Sowing the seeds of the fightback
John Haylett

Britain's construction engineering workers won a stunning victory over cowboy employers recently, winning reinstatement or re-employment of nearly 700 sacked workers at Total's Lindsey oil refinery.

That reality is uncontested, as is the fact that the willingness of the workers to stand together, walking out without ceremony at sites all over the country, made the anti-union laws inoperable.

Both unions in the industry, Unite and GMB, are committed to a national ballot for action to prevent employers from worsening workers' pay and conditions laid down in the National Agreement for the Engineering Construction Industry (NAECI), otherwise known as the blue book.

"We've got to create an industry that people want to be part of and a number of the apprentices can't see the stability that they want to see within the country"

A nationwide ballot in construction engineering would not be easy at any time, given the itinerant nature of the industry. But a secret letter sent by the employers' body, the Engineering Construction Industry Association (ECIA), to its members suggests that the unions may find matters even more difficult this year.

The letter, which was obtained by the Morning Star last month, advised employers to be obstructive, denying workforce access to full-time union officials and refusing shop stewards release time to work for a Yes vote in the ballot.

"If we could get everyone into a football stadium, we could get a vote for a national dispute without any doubt," says Les Bayliss, who is Unite assistant general secretary with executive officer responsibility for construction engineering and electrical contracting.

"We're having to work very hard with our activists and members, because it is such an itinerant workforce, to achieve a successful ballot for them to say which way they want to see the industry go," he says.

"But I'm confident that, certainly, the ECIA and ourselves can come to an agreement that recognises some of the problems inherent within the industry and which our members will find favourable and be prepared to support."

Bayliss categorises poor management as a major problem within the industry, emphasising: "We acknowledge management's right to manage, but we don't accept their right to manage badly."

That, in his opinion is what caused the problems at Lindsey, with Total relying almost exclusively on contractors to carry out the project and playing fast and loose with the blue book, especially over questions of allocation of labour.

"There were some internal disputes about allocation of labour and a number of our local officials were dealing with those through the agreed procedures," he recalls.

"Then, once the contract was moving towards the rundown and a number of the contractors were either over budget or hadn't completed the work that they had been due to complete, they started panicking and talked about getting in additional labour, but it still wasn't being managed effectively.

"They then gave redundancy notices to 51 of our members when it was clear that there was still plenty of work to be done on site."

If Total expected the workforce to roll over, it was wrong. There was a mass walkout and the company responded by ordering its subcontractors to sack the strikers and to reapply for their jobs.

This was a huge miscalculation by the transnational corporation.

By its action it showed that Total called the shots on employment by the contractors, even though it tried the classic defence of claiming to be piggy in the middle because the people on strike were not its direct employees.

And Total's refusal to abide by the provisions of the NAECI blue book, provoking the unofficial action by workers, meant that it had no recourse to anti-union legislation.

"As far as repudiation is concerned, they had a problem because they had sacked all the workforce. The point was made to us about not going through official procedures, well, our members didn't have any employer, so it was difficult for us to repudiate when we didn't have members working for a particular employer," says Bayliss.

Add to that the pressure coming from other major companies whose workers were walking off major construction projects in solidarity with the Lindsey men and Total was in a cleft stick and had to run up the white flag.

While there are some problems with an itinerant workforce, Bayliss says that the links developed between the tens of thousands of workers who move around Britain and abroad as well, on a number of projects, are quite sophisticated.

"They come across each other on a regular basis and all have each other's mobile phone numbers and other means of contact through trade union branches and the like.

"They have quite a healthy network for sharing information about what's happening in the industry and that takes many forms. For instance, there may well be work available in different parts of the country and they'll inform colleagues where there's new work starting."

Bayliss also believes that the readiness of workers to walk out in solidarity - secondary action, as it is designated in anti-strike legislation - is not due simply to events in the past 18 months.

Concerns over employers' behaviour, including blacklisting, go back 20 years and more. Although the NAECI blue book could be improved, it is seen as fundamentally a decent agreement, but "a number of our members, especially trade union activists, have been affected by blacklisting, which we and they are challenging.

"That's got to stop and people have to be brought to book. We've got to create an industry that people want to be part of and a number of the apprentices can't see the stability that they want to see within the country," Bayliss asserts.

He points out that, over and above the work linked to the 2012 London Olympics, there are plans for infrastructure projects worth hundreds of billions of pounds over the next 10 years in Britain and these plans could be jeopardised by incompetent, anti-union, cowboy employers.

Unite represents 15,000 apprentices "and it's important for them, the industry and the union to ensure that they have work in the next five, 10, 15, 20 years. The industry needs to be stabilised for that kind of continuity of employment.

"And the government has a responsibility as well because most of this work is generated through taxpayers' money.

"As part of the procurement strategy that the government is involved in, the industry should be recognising health and safety standards, the employment of apprentices and the skills development of people on the site to ensure that the country is getting the full reward for that kind of investment in the infrastructure.

"It's a highly skilled industry and the workers need to be rewarded accordingly," Bayliss declares.

And he believes that this can only come about through greater stability within the industry, which is best achieved by a much greater level of direct employment.

"There are a number of good employers about, but, unfortunately, they are outnumbered by the bad ones and I think, to be fair, some good employers are as worried as we are about what's happening in the industry, particularly through the use of agency labour where people are not directly employing anyone.

"They're going through various agencies and self-employment, which does not do anything for the industry apart from driving wages, terms and conditions down.

"Unless the employer is investing in skills and development and apprentices, it's just a short-term fix so that they can get the work, take the profits and move on to the next job," he says.

Bayliss looks forward to getting into negotiations with the employers to see whether they are committed to growing stability within construction engineering and will meet their on-site responsibilities to the workforce and to the taxpayers who will fund much of this planned boost to the country's infrastructure.

"It will be up to us to police that and see that they are honouring those agreements," he says.