Socialist Resistance

An archive of socialistresistance.org, 2002–2022

Carillion workers... Don't go to Scunthorpe!

by Jim Jepps  |  Socialist Resistance no8  |  page 4

This is scanned newsprint, not web text. The original PDFs carried no text layer at all, so every word here was read off the page by OCR. Expect dropped opening letters, run-together words and wrong characters. There was no contents page to cut the paper up by, so the articles were found from the size of their headlines: a headline may carry its kicker, and where an article ran beside a boxed panel a few lines of the neighbour can appear. The scanned issue is the authority; this text is here so the words can be found at all.

42%. Unfortunately, the turnout was a very

Nevertheless the score of the United Left candidates reflects the fact that they articulate the real concerns of activists in the branches, left to fight on their own against New Labour's endless privatisations and

strike action.

The need for the public sector unions, and in particular UNISON, to organise national industrial action against these

..• alised labour. CARILLION CONTRACT staff in Scunthorpe and Goole hospitals are currently taking strike action to demand a £5.02 minimum wage and parity with their NHS co-workers. They have already taken a number of days

Carillion (aka Tarmac) is one of only half a dozen companies that run operations right across the public sector. In one area they will run rail services, in others provide cleaners in schools, or maintenance for hospitals. They specialise in providing low paid and casuPrivatisation in the NHS has attacked the wages of already lowpaid support staff. The division of workers into different NHS trusts, different companies and different contracts means there is a more atomTo deal with the Scunthorpe strike, Carillion has been bringing in workers from Colchester, Wales and Glasgow on time and a half and paying their hotel bills. The Scunthorpe workers switched to alternate strike days (one day on, one day off) in the hope of scuppering Carillion's chances of getting volunteers. Those who support the demands of the strikers need to have a national counter-operation. In Colchester we ve found that a relatively low key set of activities has been fantastically effective.

Laundry staff told us they were being asked to provide uniforms for workers going to Scunthorpe, so Colchester General's UNISON branch sprang into quite uncharacteristic action. We put up posters saying to Carillion workers 'Don't Go to Scunthorpe' explaining what they were being asked to do. We spoke face to face with as many Carillion workers as we could find, workers who confirmed that they were being asked to go to Scunthorpe and to cover for those mysteriously 'away'.

These workers were horrified when they found out what they were being asked to do and because so many started refusing not a single person has been victimised over this

We also put out an open letter to the press to try to mop up any workers that we'd missed and tried to spread the word through both formal and informal channels to let people know what was happening.

Carillion has work forces all over the country. If they run an operation near you make sure that as many of their employees as possible know what is taking place, and that it is not in their interests to work to keep their own wages down. If we can create a mini-movement across the country this will be a massive bargaining chip for the Scunthorpe strikers, increase the chances of the employers caving in and ensure that no one in your town comes out of this affair thinking that scabbing is respectable. This is a modest but real chance to re-establish the principles of working class solidarity and demonstrate that unity really is strength.

Messages of support to the Scunthorpe strikers to: • Joe Koper, 44 Cliff Gardens, Scunthorpe, DN 15. If you'd like to see a sample text of the posters and open letter to use in your area go to www.colchester-socialistalliance.org