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Unite to strike again, prejudicing nuclear safety at Faslane and Coulport

And despite all of this, it is irresponsible enough to promise that the impact of its planned strikes at the nuclear facilities at Faslane and Coulport will be ‘significant’.

On an 82% constituency vote, 95% of workers in the Unite union employed at the naval bases at Faslane and Coulport, within HMNB Clyde in Argyll, have opted to strike because the 1% pay increase offered by their employer Babcock, is below inflation.

The action – whose date or dates have yet to be decided, with mass meetings to be held – is said to be likely to impact on nuclear submarine maintenance – Faslane is the UK Trident nuclear submarine base; and on the monitoring of radiation levels at the base, a matter in which the existing record at Faslane is far from reassuring.

At one point, the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency said that if it had the authority to do so, it would close the base.

In London this evening the city was in chaos, with the  first of two 48 hour strike on the London Underground planned by the RMT and TSSA unions. only 40% of the tube workers voted. The strike decision was taken on a majority vote of those who did vote. This is hardly a defensible foundation for crashing the country’s metropolis.

The second of the two 48 hour strikes is to start at 21.00 on Tuesday 11th February.

The Mayor of London, Boris Johnston UK Government is calling for the UK Government to consider whether to designate the Underground an essential service, an action which would make it more difficult for workers to strike.

The confrontational stand offs between workers and employers, resulting in strikes like these and in those we may see at Faslane and Coulport are from the archaeology of industrial relations and must be replaced.

If the London tube is an essential service – and it unarguably is – work connected with the armed services must be similarly off limits for strike action.

Unite all but took out Scotland itself in its astonishingly ill-judged action at Grangemouth only months ago.

It has also been seen in the report leaked to The Guardian this week as having taken wholly improper action to rig the selection of the Labour Party candidate for the Falkirk Westminster seat in favour of Unite employee and favourite, Karie Murphy.

And despite all of this, it is irresponsible enough to promise that the impact of its planned strikes at the nuclear facilities at Faslane and Coulport will be ‘significant’.

February 5, 2014 - Posted by arclight2011part2 | Uncategorized