By Andy Ford, Warrington South Labour member
Bus drivers in Manchester are determined to fight the threat of a drastic cut in their wages and conditions by their employer, Go North West. The company are attempting to fire all of their 485 drivers so that they can enforce a cut in the number of drivers, and at the same time implement longer working hours for the same money and cuts in sick policy for those they take back on.
This is the same bus depot that saw a strike and protest blockade against the dismissal of a Unite rep last autumn and the drivers have once again voted for industrial action, this time by 82%, on a 77% turnout.
According to the Unite press release, the new terms and conditions are drastically reduced. “If Go North West’s fire and rehire proposals are implemented”, it says, “it will result in:
*A 10 per cent cut in bus drivers,
*Workers, who earn an average of £24,000 per annum, forced to work longer for no additional pay, resulting in them being £2,500 a year worse off
*Tearing up the existing sick pay policy, which will force workers to work when they are sick or should be self-isolating during the Covid-19 pandemic”
The company claims to be in financial difficulties and the union had entered into negotiations on terms and conditions. Go North West originally threatened the fire and rehire (also known as ‘dismiss and re-engage’) last September, but the threat of strike action brought the company back to the table.
Now the threat has resurfaced. Any drivers who have not signed the new contract have received letters which say that if they do not sign then “Go North West is issuing you with notice of the termination of your employment, which shall end on 8 May 2021”. Then, just for good measure, the company gave them just eight days to sign, or the “offer”, more correctly threat, would be withdrawn.
‘Fire and rehire’ a legal device
In law it is quite difficult for any company to alter the contract of employment without agreement, either explicit, or at least by acquiescence. But unfortunately, the law is quite open to fire and rehire. What happens is that the company dismisses its workers for alleged “good business reasons”, which counts as a potentially fair reason for dismissal under ‘Some Other Substantial Reason’.
They then immediately offer them new contracts of employment which are similar enough to count as ‘Suitable Alternative Employment’. A worker who refuses will find themselves without a job, and without a redundancy payment. As long as the company follow the letter of the law by issuing notice under Section 188 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act, they will be immune from legal action.
A flawed law that Labour should abolished
The whole practice goes against even the capitalist principle of a contract being a ‘binding agreement’ reached between two equal parties, and it should have been made illegal years ago by a Labour government.
The fact that it survives into modern employment law is because of the lingering influence of the feudal Masters and Servants Act, which treated the two parties as fundamentally unequal, because in those days employees tended to be servants who were part of their ‘masters’ household. In law they were treated then as dependents, just like a wife and children. At the same time, this same law constrains the workers’ rights to industrial action with a great many legal complications and restrictions.
Strike action the only answer
So can there be no expectation of help from a law that still treats working people as fundamentally of lower status than their employers. The only answer is industrial action, or the threat of it.
This was shown the first time that this disgraceful practice surfaced in recent times, in 2010, when the London Fire Brigade attempted to dismiss their entire front-line workforce to impose new and worse shift patterns The FBU, under Matt Wrack’s leadership, fought off management’s aggressive tactics, but it took several days of strike action, including pickets of fire stations, during which two FBU members were run over by scabs. There was also a mass march of 2,500 uniformed fire fighters. This was the strike during which it emerged that LFB had sold off the entire fleet of appliances to a company called AsssetCo so that they could then lease them back.
Unions entering new territory
These bullying tactics show that all trade unions are now entering new territory, as employers get ready for what the Bank of England predicts will be the biggest recession since the Great Frost of 1709. Fire and rehire will be attempted in one company after another and in one public service after another. It can be stopped, but only if the unions show a determined and militant spirit and the leaders of the unions are prepared to lead their members in a fight.
The bus drivers of Go North West need our solidarity now, in whatever they decide to do. Please send messages of support from individuals, union branches, trades Councils and Labour parties, to: colin.hayden@unitetheunion.org
