By Tim Shipley, member of Liverpool Construction branch
If I sent a message to Len McCluskey, from his construction workers, it would go something like this:
“Whoever signed that agreement for so-called ‘support operatives’ at Hinkley Point C in Somerset must be sacked. These workers will be expected to do 90% of electricians’ work, after only a couple of weeks of a crappy course, but of course at much lower rates of pay.
That agreement has to be ripped up immediately and arrangements returned to the original one. Whoever signed that agreement on our behalf, has undermined all construction workers in the UK, although the majority don’t even know it yet. It will destroy our trades, our Joint Industrial Board, national agreements and our job prospects in one fell swoop.
I would say that Len, as general secretary and leader of a union of a million, do your duty and sort this one out personally, either with a phone call or a visit to Hinckley Point C. You have the power, now use it, to stop a tsunami of anger heading your way!
Balfours, Baileys and all the blacklisting companies are on the attack once again, on the sparks and on the mechanical sections. One phone call from you, Len, would sort it out. You can either flex your massive power and sort it out this week and be lauded as a great general secretary or, you can do nothing and be remembered with hatred, and I mean that one hundred per cent.
Good luck Len, and dig deep into your socialist conscience, because, this is written from the heart, with of all of the building tradesmen dead or alive in mind. Those who have stood on picket lines, fought throughout their lives, at a massive cost to themselves and their families, for what is right. Please do the right thing, Len.
From one of hundreds of thousands of raging construction workers who pay your wages every week.”
PS To the mechies, and the GMB who are involved in this as well, get into your union leaders as we are doing before it is too late. The support operatives’ courses start in two weeks and then that is that. Share his round all your mates and all the site cabins. It’s been kept quiet and we’ve just found out they’ve been sorting this out for a year or so without us knowing.
I’ve also just posted this on the BBC and other media outlets, about youth unemployment. I have now been banned by Facebook for posting it. Please support me on the BBC and share it if you like. As far as I’m aware it is true.
Here it is:
The Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant is the biggest construction site in the UK, and was supposed to take on 500 proper electrician apprentices, who would become qualified electricians over the duration of the project. It is just what the UK needs to fill the skills shortage. But, now that deal has been scrapped and replaced by crappy two-month (or less) courses, to ‘qualify’ to do 90% of the electrical work on a nuclear plant, with hardly any highly skilled electricians on site.
It is worth noting that most disasters on any industrial complexes are due to electrical faults. If it was built with semi-skilled labour where there ought to be skilled labour, I would not like to live within 100 miles of that nuclear disaster waiting to happen. I would definitely move house, as far away from Hinckley point C as possible, before it’s too late.
I am nearly 60 and a highly skilled time-served (5-year apprenticeship) electrician and I know the intricacies and complexities of electrical work inside out. This will be a disaster, mark my words. A perfectly good agreement was in place and agreed by the companies involved, to take on highly skilled craftsmen, electrical and mechanical, and a high percentage of local craftsmen, to build this nuclear power plant but with the stroke of a pen, it has all been changed and all those local apprenticeships will not now happen. It is not only electrical apprenticeships that are being scrapped but, mechanical ones too.
Building a nuclear plant like this is like asking traffic wardens to build a space station to orbit Mars with 2 months training (no disrespect meant to traffic wardens). What a disgrace and such a shame for those youngsters. What is this country coming to? Greed and profit over safety every time.
These kids of ours need hope and a chance to make something of their lives. We need them to pay taxes for our NHS, Police, social services pensions, infrastructure etc. It is their futures that matter the most and greedy corporations are taking that chance away from them over bigger profits that most of them pay none or, very little tax on, with all the offshore fiddles going on.
The classrooms are set up at Hinkley already, to fast track these unskilled persons in the next couple of weeks. Hinkley Point C has a website that has now apparently stopped all comments. I smell a dirty big rat. If I am wrong, I hold my hands up and apologise profusely and hope the nuclear plant is built to the highest standards possible but, if I am right and from the information circulating throughout the construction industry, I believe I am, then God help us all, especially those in the fall-out zone.
