Jerry Hicks

BBES Unite members' 'Strike Ballot' timetable details...

November 7th: Letter from Unite to BBES informing them of the ballot.

November 14th: All BBES ‘Unite members’ should receive ballot papers.

November 28th & 29th: Ballot papers should have been returned and counted

November 30th: Notice to BBES of proposed action.

December 7th: First day of action [New contract day... But don't sign].

Look out for the ballot paper VOTE YES FOR STRIKE ACTION and send it back.

If you know anyone not in the union, sign them up.

This is good news but irrespective of the ballot: The rank and file must pile on the pressure. Organise: Occupy: Shut sites: Take the fight to infamous 7.

“Come rain, come shine, never cross a protest picket line”.

Round up of what went on, and what went off, and where it happened...

Last week saw protests in Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle, Govan and London

In Manchester at the Balfour Beatty Carrington Paper Mill site at least 5 van loads of workers and many deliveries refused to cross the ‘protest picket lines’

In Newcastle around 60 sparks started their demonstration well before dawn at the Ashington School. The site is Kier and Balfours is the electrical contractor. The shite [sorry about the spelling mistake] manager was very unhappy at us demonstrating, complaining that we were causing a traffic jam on the main road outside the site. One nil to the sparks.

We stayed our ground putting our case to workers, with 20 electricians walking from the site to join our protest picket. Two nil to the sparks.

Then to our surprise some senior national mangers of Kier and Balfours arrived, who were stopped by the ‘protest picket’ then forced to drive through a very noisy [un]friendly demonstration. Three nil to the sparks.
This was a great result, but we all know there is a long way to go.

In London sparks protested outside Balfour Beatty Blackfriars Station before blocking roads through the centre of the City. Then it was on to Cannon Street and invading the Gratte Brothers site, where they unfurled a banner proclaiming "ALL POWER TO THE SPARKS".

When it was pointed out to the Site Agent that pay rates were being cut from £16 to £10 an hour, he replied "I'd put the scumbags on £1 an hour if it was up to me." So guess where the demo's going to be next Wednesday at 7am?

Police have informed the union that if the London action continues, they will issue Section 14 Notices under the Public Order Act - which would effectively make any gathering illegal and allow for pickets to be arrested if they continued to protest after the Notice has been served. Coming soon 'Match of the day live' Section 14 Versus 'Civil disobedience'.

Protests and events coming up next week that we know about:

Wednesday, November 2nd

Manchester 06.30am Carrington Paper Mill.

London: 06.45am Cannon Street Grattes.

Newcastle: ring 07711080607 for details.

London, Monday October 31st from 7pm -
Solidarity meeting called to help organise fliering of sites for the 9th. Upstairs in the Cock Tavern, 23 Phoenix Road, Euston NW1 1HB.

London, Tuesday November 8th at 7pm -
Unite organised meeting for Agency sparks Friends Meeting House, Euston. Speakers inc Rank & File Committee Member.

Unite's day of action November 9th call local offices for transport details. If you have any trouble then email bernard.mcaulay@unitetheunion.org

ALL OUT IN LONDON NOVEMBER 9th : Construction Industry National Day of Action. See R&F leaflet HERE

11.30 Protest at ‘The Shard’. Then march to Blackfriars and on to Westminster. We may well pull off something a bit special before the demo? Will keep you posted.

Email your ideas and any actions planned siteworkers@virginmedia.com

Siteworker blog (under construction) www.siteworker.wordpress.com
Electricians Against The World www . jibelectrician . blogspot . com/

1] Grass Roots Left NEC: Saturday October 15th 1pm to 4pm

Upstairs in the Cock Tavern, 23 Phoenix Road, London NW1 1HB All welcome [though only elected members can vote]. Agenda: National Conference: Constitution: Reports of activities: AOB

2] November 5th Gun powder treason and plot. “Guy Fawkes the only person ever to enter parliament with honourable intent”. However, apart from all that it’s also the date for the Grass Roots Left National Conference. All supporters of GRL are welcome, and there is plenty to be discussing.

3] Additional NEC seats: No time to waste as contrary to our original information the elections for the 2 additional NEC Equality seats will not be in the spring, in fact the nomination period is 14th November to 6th January. Lesley Mansell has expressed an interest, if you want to contest the seat/s as a GRL candidate let me know jerryhicks4gs2010@yahoo.co.uk

4] Simpson’s £’sss severance and appointment of Howard Beckett: Times up! We’ve had no response to our letters to the UNITE General Secretary [no surprise, but still disappointing] so consequently we will now be pursuing both matters with immediate effect. Hold on to your hats…further details to follow.

5] Rank and File ‘sparks’ dispute latest: Please see previous post. Titled ‘Let’s show the Tate Modern the art of civil disobedience'. It’s the latest dispute update. Take a look, forward it on, and try to get to the protests.

6] UCATT election for General Secretary: Financial appeal.

Balloting begins on 11th November. Mick Dooley is the candidate who pledges to take an average wage, supports taking direct action and believes in grass roots control of unions. That is why we should help him.

Please make a donation for the fighting fund to: ‘Friends of Mick Dooley’
Lloyds bank: Sort code 30 97 84 Account number: 41395168

Or send cheques payable to ‘Friends of Mick Dooley’ to D Heemskerk: 27 Surbiton Road, Southend on Sea, Essex; SS2 4NR.

See you at the next demo and at the GRL National Conference November 5th

Keep on keeping on,

Jerry.

Seven weeks of fantastic rank and file protests has seen off one of the big 8 [MJN Colston]. At rank and file meetings committees have been elected in London, Manchester and the North East. This week's target sites have been chosen [see below].

But, with the D day approaching - December 7th new contact signing deadline, the Unite ballot is still nowhere to be seen [email Mr McAulay bernard.mcaulay@unitetheunion.org demanding a ballot date]. We need to be ‘upping the ante’ with walk-outs, occupations, demos and ‘protest picket lines’ stopping the job where ever and when ever possible.

Concentrating on the weakest links seems the right tactic: Tommy Clarkes, SPIE Matthew Hall and Grattes. If we are also in the faces of the clients, who are getting increasingly jarred off with the protests, it can make life hard for the rogue 7. Ultimately to stand any chance of beating this attack on the JIB, we need to be building for an all trades all out national strike of construction workers on November 30th, the same day that 2 million public sector workers take strike action to defend their pensions.

Since the last update there have been numerous demos and walkouts. [Sorry if we missed yours out, it’s not deliberate]. Newcastle at Balfours regional HQ. 2 demos in Manchester. In Liverpool, sparks refused to cross the ‘protest picket line’ at the Shepards site, central Library. In Nottingham on Friday, there was a walk out at Ratcliffe power station. In Scotland at Cambuslang on Balfours, lads walked off site with 150 outside the gate, where members of the fire brigades union came over with tea and biscuits, a nice touch, eh! ‘Solidari- tea’!!

In Glasgow, there was a protest at the apprentice of the year awards while in London, despite the efforts of Scotland Yard to ban us, over 250 sparks and supporters were outside the T Clarke site and closed Oxford Street! Click on the video to see for yourself, please forward on to inspire people to come to a protest near them!



Future meetings and demos we have to be at:

IMPORTANT NOTICE: Bernard McAuley Unite national construction officer will be attending the meetings in Hartlepool and London this week - get there and make your presence felt and your feelings known!

Hartlepool: Mon 10th Oct 7:30pm Belle Vue Social Club Kendle Road Hartlepool TS25 1QU https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=284378361581348

London: Tues 11th Oct 6.30pm Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, Holburn.
https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=169295839820247


Rank and file demos [that we know about]:

London: Wed 12th Oct 7am, Tate Modern, Summer Street SE1. Bankside, nearest tube Southwark on the Jubilee line.

Newecastle: Wed 12th Oct 6:30 am Walkergate Medical, Centre, Benfield road, directly outside Walkergate metro station about 1/4 of a mile past the main Walkergate Hospital, on Benfield Road.

Glasgow: Govan shipyard. Wednesday 12th October 07.00am - Assemble at the middle Gate. Govan Shipyard - Govan Road.

Manchester: Wednesday 12th October 6.30 Carrington Paper Mill, Trafford.

Email us with ideas and any actions planned siteworkers@virginmedia.com

Get regular updates: Electricians Against The World http ://www . jibelectrician . blogspot . com/

Blacklist Support Group AGM: Sat 29th Oct 11am - 3pm Nunn Hall, Institute of Education, Euston, London. Premier of new film by Reel News about the campaign against the blacklist. Blacklist Support Group www.hazards.org/blacklistblog

Scotland Yard has been in contact with UNITE the Union to try and stop a planned protest outside a building site in Oxford Street tomorrow morning Wednesday 5th Oct. For the past 3 weeks thousands of electricians have been involved in protests at Kings Cross, Farringdon Crossrail Station, the Shard and Blackfriars Station in a bitter campaign against a 35% pay cut and de-skilling of the industry.

The dispute has already spread beyond London. Last week the Tyne Tunnel was closed by protesters and walkouts have occurred at Grangemouth in Scotland and Lindsey Oil Refinery on Humberside. The action has been organised by a grassroots network led by rank & file activists rather than the official union. In London two weeks ago, Farringdon Station was invaded by 300 sparks and last week the main road at Kings Cross was closed by police after being blocked by 400 protesters who then stormed the station concourse.



Met Police have now decided to adopt a harsher approach in fear that Oxford Street may be brought to a standstill during rush-hour tomorrow morning. Jerry Hicks, a grass roots, rank and file committee member said "This will almost certainly bring the issue to a head. These are building workers - not young students. They are determined to demonstrate."

The background to the dispute is that the largest electrical contractors in the UK: Bailey Building Services, Balfour Beatty Engineering Services, Tommy Clarke, Crown House Technologies, Gratte Brothers, SES and SPIE Matthew Hall have all decided to withdraw from the nationally negotiated electrical agreement [JIB].

Electricians are currently paid £16.25 per hour - the proposed new contracts cut this to £10 per hour for the vast majority of the work. In addition the new contract would allow non-qualified staff to carry out electrical work. Dismissal Notices have already been sent out to thousands of electrical workers - the new contracts will be imposed on 7th December.

The building site in Oxford Street is a Tommy Clarke site - one of the rogue electrical contractors. It has been reported that major clients fear that the dispute will escalate and impact upon projects across the UK - some tendering processes have been halted because of the negative publicity around the electrical firms involved.

The protest details are: 6:30am, Wednesday 5th October at Tommy Clarke building site, Park House, opposite Selfridges in Oxford Street, London.