Features
KEVIN'S VISION At the inaugural meeting of the new Doxford Park
branch, Kevin Gallagher was elected ‘President’. It was
a special honour for a man who came to work at Doxford Park six
years ago and kept the union flame burning when the future looked
gloomy. He quietly continued to recruit and, with others,
held little gatherings in whatever discreet corner they could find.
Now he is looking forward to proper, open meetings and the opportunity
for UNISON to prove its worth to members. He was a keen member from the start. A victim of
the wanton destruction of Britain’s coal mining industry, Kevin
has strong memories of the 1984 miners’ strike: "I remember who gave us help. It was NUPE and
NALGO [founding unions of UNISON]. They were campaigning unions
so here was my chance to join a campaigning union which fought against
injustice and low wages." Kevin recruited scores of staff at Doxford Park. Now he has been able to take part in open recruiting which has seen membership rise to around a third of the current 1100 workforce. LONDON ELECTRICITY The LE Group started as London Electricity and now
has more than 11,000 employees in London, the South West, North
East and Southern England and supplies energy to 5.2 million customers.
The LE Group is an Electricitié de France (EDF) company.
EDF supplies 46.7 million customers and employs more than 170,000
people in 24 countries. The LE Group is a significant asset to EDF contributing
£91m in 2002 – when turnover was up by 50%. UNISON and Prospect (formerly the EMA) jointly support
these representatives and actively work with trade unions from other
countries in championing employee issues at the highest level within
EDF through the EWC. The LE Group is currently integrating SEEBOARD (South East Electricity) and is planning to cut more than 1,000 jobs. The trade unions are consulting with the group, both corporately and locally and there is a guarantee of no compulsory redundancies. |
Exiled, derecognised, and ignored. But UNISON members working for London Electricity hung in there when the future was bleak. Now they have given birth to a new branch, reports Laurence Pollock
Energetic determination
An eight-year battle against fierce anti-trade union attitudes has seen
the birth of the first new UNISON energy branch in more than a decade.
The branch is based at the London Electricity (LE) group’s customer
services function (call centre) at Doxford Park, Sunderland.
In the mid 1990s London Electricity moved its call centre there because
of lower property costs and wages. It also took the opportunity to de-recognise
trade unions.
But a combination of dogged membership, campaigning at regional and national
level and enlightened European attitudes has turned the situation around.
Now there is a growing branch with elected officers charting the way ahead.
Doxford Park is the LE group’s largest call centre, with 1,100 staff
- about 10% of the total workforce.
Just after the move, the UNISON members who had transferred to Doxford
Park worked with the Greater London region started a long battle to secure
recognition.
But this was unsuccessful and the company pressed ahead with a ‘consultative’
system for non-union employee representatives.
Yet UNISON continued to recruit at Doxford although full time officers
were banned from the site and members had no collective rights. A union
Organisation Support team (OST) project was established, with funding
from the National Recruitment budget and the Business and the Environment
section.
Attitudes gradually changed after a take-over by publicly owned Electricité
de France (EDF) in 1998. Branch officers and staff in Greater London,
Northern, South West regions (where London Electricity had taken over
the South West Electricity Board – SWEB) and staff from head office
all worked together and valuable support came from French trade unions
organising in EDF, particularly the CGT.
UNISON was also able to exploit the legal requirement that the company
establish a European Works Council (EWC) and UNISON representatives were
elected to the special negotiating body that organised this.
"Doxford was the only site in the group without a union," says
branch secretary Joy Tennant. "Things started to change after LE
was taken over by Electricité de France. Unions were allowed to
recruit from last November. I became more involved, talking to people
and at our first members’ meeting in January I was asked to become
a health and safety rep."
Finally, in the beginning of May, London Electricity agreed to recognise
five unions, including UNISON. The fact that UNISON had more than 50%
of staff in all London Electricity call centres helped push through the
recognition quicker and UNISON is now the main union for all staff.
The new branch committee and branch secretary are "very keen"
to get things moving and recruitment is already accelerating, according
to UNISON regional organiser John Loudoun.
"I have asked the customer services human resources director to
arrange a meeting with the five recognised trade unions to look at how
trade unions can work with the Company to develop local consultation and
negotiating arrangements.
"Special tribute must be paid to the original UNISON members who
transferred to the site, stuck with the union and provided the foundations
for a new branch which will go from strength to strength. This is an inspiration
to us all."
The dislocated, cut-off, de-recognised world of the 1990s has gone and
UNISON members’ horizons are continuing to grow – not just to
Europe but also with other sites in the group.
"We are linking up with other LE group branches in London, the South
east and the South west," says Tennant. "If we need help or
advice, there is someone who can point us in the right direction.
"The hard work is just beginning – we have to sit down with the company over the next few weeks and discuss issues such as facility time for branch officers and the sickness procedure."
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|
RECOGNITION AND HOW TO GET ITOn 6 June 2000, the right to statutory recognition established
by the Employment Relations Act 1999, came into effect. For the
first time in 20 years workers had the legal right to have their
union recognised for collective bargaining. Collective bargaining is defined as covering negotiations with
the employer on three core issues - pay, hours and holidays. The
employer must "inform and consult" the union on training,
but this is not included in the collective bargaining definition. Claims for recognition are not admissible if there is already
a collective agreement in place setting out bargaining procedures.
The only exceptions to this are where the existing agreement does
not already cover pay, hours and holidays; or where the agreement
is with a union that has not been certified as independent. The Central Arbitration Committee awards recognition if the trade
union and the employer cannot agree. There is a ‘short step’ procedure to recognition, when the trade union has a majority of the bargaining unit in membership. If that is the case, then the CAC can award recognition ‘automatically’ – i.e. without a ballot. But the CAC can still order a ballot if it considers that that would be in the interests of ‘good industrial relations’ or where a significant number of workers request one, or if there is membership evidence that a significant number do not want the union to be recognised. |
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