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All sodding about to one side lads, lasses and people who name their avatars after their dogs. If you go past on the days in question beep your horn as a show of support for the pickets, even better park up go over and stick a few bob in their collection and have a chat with the pickets show your support. It can be a great moral booster when you are on the picket line and every two bob anti union newspaper and every halfwit under the sun appears to be against you.
Remploy York votes for strike action as ballots underway in a further 5 Remploy factories as disabled workers step up campaign for the existing factory network and for the required management changes
Disabled Remploy workers who work at factories in Birkenhead and Aintree will be on strike on Wednesday 6th and Thursday 7th February 2008 in a dispute over redundancies. Further strikes are planned for 13th and 14th February and the 21st and 22nd February. The York factory which has voted for strike action will join the strikes on the 13th and 14th February.
These strikes follow ballots by GMB and Unite at Remploy CCU in Birkenhead and Remploy Aintree which showed overwhelming support for industrial action in the ongoing dispute over redundancies at Remploy. Disabled workers at Remploy York have voted in an official strike ballot by 6 to 1 to take strike action. There are a further five official strike ballots in the pipeline. Results are expected in the coming weeks for the Remploy factories in Hartlepool, and St Helens, and Treforest, Ystradgynlais near Swansea and Brynammon in South Wales. Detailed consultations are underway regarding official strike ballots in the other factories set for closure.
The Remploy strike ballots follow on from the announcement on 29th November 2007 by the former Secretary of State Peter Hain that he planed to go ahead with the Remploy management’s proposal to close 28 Remploy factories out of the total network of 83. The factories to be closed, with the loss of 2,000 supported jobs for disabled workers, are listed in List 1 below.
Paul Kenny, GMB General Secretary, responding to the ballot results said “It is shamefull that disabled workers employed by Remploy are forced to take strike action to defend their jobs. These Remploy disabled workers are victims of long running poor management and direction that failed to use the changes in the EU procurement laws to provide a steady workload to all factories.
Remploy workers have been betrayed by the Labour Government who misled the workers, the Labour Party Conference and the public that there would be a change of policy regarding choice and public procurement to secure a future for the Remploy network. Yet a mere 8 weeks later the closure of 28 factories was confirmed by the now departed Secretary of State Peter Hain. Still the dirty tricks and smears continue in the wake of these broken promises. Management now intend to sack even more disabled workers than they started out planning to sack.
This whole exercise has been a sham and a disgrace which will taint the relationship between GMB and the Government.”
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Contact: For local comment see the list of factories and contacts below. For National comment speak to Phil Davies, GMB National Secretary on 07850 966465 or Jennie Formby, Unite National Secretary on 07702 206436 or Les Woodward, Remploy trade union Convenor on 07977 436251. GMB Press Office: Rose Conroy on 07974 251823or Steve Pryle on 07921 289880 or T&GWU Press Office: 020 7611 2549.
Notes to Editors:
1 Factories in List I are due to close and some staff from those marked close/merge will transfer to other Remploy sites.
2 Factories in List 2 that will remain open.
3 The trades unions in Remploy are GMB, Unite (TGWU & Unite (GPMU Section) have merged) and Community.
4 The Remploy Members own Website can be found at www.gmbremployworkers.info
5 The Official Union Remploy campaign webpage is at www.gmb.org.uk
6 The Trade Union Consortium wrote to councilors, local government and NHS procurement officers, school governors and many others to seek work for the Remploy factories. Remploy workers are ready, willing and able to exploit their manufacturing capacity to produce the high quality goods and to provide the bespoke services needed to meet your procurement requirements. Remploy provides products and services to world class standards of quality, reliability and service. It works with multinationals as well as national governments and local authorities. With its proven track record for innovation this means that Remploy is well positioned to become a Supplier of Choice to public bodies. It is not widely known that Remploy is :
- A leader in recycling of electrical appliances
- One of Britain’s main manufacturers of performance textiles and uniforms
- A global leader in the design and development of wheelchairs, specialist footwear and physiotherapy products
- A key provider of outsourced service solutions in front and back office services, manufacturing, production, security, catering and maintenance with a blue chip customer base
- The market leader in providing educational and office furniture for public buildings
- A Tier 1 supplier to the automotive industry with clients like Jaguar, Landrover and BMW
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