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GMB gets on O’Rourke CTRL site to talk terms
11:56 17 Nov 2004
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The conflict at Laing O’Rourke’s £311m Contract 105 for the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL) looks to be drawing to a close after the GMB was finally allowed on site to help negotiate the contractor’s new working agreement following a month’s ban.
O’Rourke opened its gates to the GMB after 100 workers staged a second four-hour sit-in at the site’s canteen last Thursday and refused to return to work unless the union was allowed access.
GMB regional organiser Tom Kelly spent Friday on the site collating a list of concerns from its 130-member workers over O’Rourke’s new working agreement, which the GMB has now sent in writing to the contractor.
The union’s detailed list of recommendations includes: providing at least 12 long-weekend working allowances a year for long-distance workers; allowing a three-month notice period for each party to terminate a contract (currently a month); and to ensure that holiday pay doesn’t leave workers financially worse off.
“Our recommendations also include reducing a lot of the ambiguity in the contract,” Kelly said.
“At the moment, sections such as holiday pay make it sound as if workers will be worse off when that might not be the case.”
The GMB is expecting a response from O’Rourke to its recommendations some time this week.
However, both the UCATT and TGWU unions, which have previously been allowed access to the site, have already received a response from O’Rourke to their own wish-list of recommendations following a meeting with the contractor two weeks ago.
Although O’Rourke’s full response to both unions has been kept private, the recommendations are believed to be very similar to the GMB’s demands, except UCATT has put extra emphasis on maintaining workers’ terms and conditions regarding TUPE transfers.
The current worker ceasefire will provide some relief to O’Rourke after rumours of increasing worker unrest at T5, where hundreds of its workers will be switched from the current lucrative working agreements to the new contract on other sites nationwide in the next six weeks as concrete work slows down.
T5 workers are expected to be shown the new contract during presentations by O’Rourke managers in the coming weeks.
O’Rourke opened its gates to the GMB after 100 workers staged a second four-hour sit-in at the site’s canteen last Thursday and refused to return to work unless the union was allowed access.
GMB regional organiser Tom Kelly spent Friday on the site collating a list of concerns from its 130-member workers over O’Rourke’s new working agreement, which the GMB has now sent in writing to the contractor.
The union’s detailed list of recommendations includes: providing at least 12 long-weekend working allowances a year for long-distance workers; allowing a three-month notice period for each party to terminate a contract (currently a month); and to ensure that holiday pay doesn’t leave workers financially worse off.
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“Our recommendations also include reducing a lot of the ambiguity in the contract,” Kelly said.
“At the moment, sections such as holiday pay make it sound as if workers will be worse off when that might not be the case.”
The GMB is expecting a response from O’Rourke to its recommendations some time this week.
However, both the UCATT and TGWU unions, which have previously been allowed access to the site, have already received a response from O’Rourke to their own wish-list of recommendations following a meeting with the contractor two weeks ago.
Although O’Rourke’s full response to both unions has been kept private, the recommendations are believed to be very similar to the GMB’s demands, except UCATT has put extra emphasis on maintaining workers’ terms and conditions regarding TUPE transfers.
The current worker ceasefire will provide some relief to O’Rourke after rumours of increasing worker unrest at T5, where hundreds of its workers will be switched from the current lucrative working agreements to the new contract on other sites nationwide in the next six weeks as concrete work slows down.
T5 workers are expected to be shown the new contract during presentations by O’Rourke managers in the coming weeks.
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