TOP NEWS
STORIES DURHAM MINERS’ GALA Find out more HERE Rejecting division
Unite members from across all regions and sectors joined this year’s 135th Durham Miners’ Gala, where it is estimated that 200,000 people attended in July.
At one of Europe’s largest annual trade union events, attendees came out in droves despite the rain as they listened to a range of speeches including from Unite general secretary Len McCluskey
and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn among others. Addressing the crowds at the Gala in Durham, McCluskey called for working-class unity and solidarity. “I reject this new division of the country into ‘Remainers’ and ‘Leavers’,” he said. “I reject the call for a culture war pitting the big cities against the rest. I reject a choice between Nigel Farage on the one hand and the City of London on the other.”
UNION RECOGNITION WIN Find out more HERE ‘Historic moment’
Unite signed a landmark agreement in September to represent 1,700 Rolls-Royce managers at the firm’s Derby and Hucknall sites after record numbers of managerial staff joined the union.
Managers at the firm have suffered a series of cut backs, including hundreds of job losses, in recent years. Unite regional officer Tony Tinley said the number of Rolls- Royce management staff who have joined the union is “is unheard of in the modern day”.
Tinley added, “They feel their terms and conditions have been eroded, they felt they did not have a voice and they could see that they didn’t have the same protections as there are on the shop floor against compulsory redundancy.”
The interim agreement is the first of its kind for management levels at Rolls-Royce in Derby and Unite is expecting to roll this out to all the firm’s UK sites over the coming months.
NUCLEAR INDUSTRY/WAGES Find out more HERE ‘Mighty’ pay rise
Unite members working for Mitie at Sellafield in Cumbria ended their pay dispute in July with the outsourcing giant after securing a pay rise of 55 pence per hour.
The historic pay rise takes the wages of over 180 Unite members working as security guards, cleaners, vending, laundry and environmental operatives up to the Living Wage Foundation’s real living wage of £9 per hour. The revised pay deal was backed by 79 per cent of members in a consultative ballot.
The pay dispute, which saw 31 days of strike action at the nuclear site, came after workers rejected the company’s initial pay offer which would have seen most workers paid just £8.45 per hour.
Commenting Unite regional officer Ryan Armstrong said, “This historic pay rise demonstrates what can be achieved when you stick together and have Unite on your side.
“It has been a long, difficult dispute, but the determination of members to stand up for better pay has shone through and secured a real living wage for Mitie workers at Sellafield.”
6 uniteWORKS Autumn 2019
Mark Harvey
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