Following the latest meeting this week between Thales management and RMT reps, we made it clear that we will not accept compulsory redundancies, and that voluntary redundancy and alternative post opportunities must be the primary goal.
We insisted that :-
1. The compulsory redundancy situation is withdrawn, as the proposed re-organisation shows post vacancies that our members can fill.
2. Thales bring back ‘in-house’ the out-sourced workload, for example analogue to CAS cut-overs and exchange surveys.
Despite this, Thales are still rail-roading the consultations through and as a consequence, we are in dialog with regards to the selection assessment criteria because we feel it is biassed, unfair and discriminatory.
In addition to this, Thales are trying to start a consultation on roster changes. We have insisted this must not go ahead as firstly it will cause unacceptable additional stress to those at risk and secondly the machinery for roster negotiations has not been agreed by Thales.
It is possible that Thales will adapt the same approach with roster as they have with redundancies and plough on without completing the consultation process or reaching an agreement. Therefore it is very important for all shift workers that no-one gets directly involved with management in discussions regarding new rosters, even if offers sound tempting. We are very fortunate to be in a unionised workplace where rosters have to be agreed between Thales and the union (and its members) rather than having them forced upon us, and as such we must use the machinery put in place to do this. Short-circuiting the machinery serves only to fragment the unity and throttle the effectiveness of the union, something that no paid-up member would wish for. All roster negotiations must be done through union reps.
For us to reach a successful outcome on these matters, it is important that we all stick together. It is also imperative that we support each other unconditionally, that is to say any one of us could be at risk of redundancy at any moment as Thales have not yet made final proposals. There must be no ‘I’m alright’ attitude. This process does not stop when Thales have selected their redundancy victims, its stops when management stop attacking our T’s and C’s and our right to a fair work-home balance. Strength in unity.
