Link to this page: http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/issue/594/8176
From The Socialist newspaper, 23 September 2009
Bosses ask JCB workers for sacrifice
JCB workers have been made to pay for the economic crisis over the last year with 1,600 redundancies in the UK and many other attacks on our pay and conditions. At the plant in Rocester in Staffordshire we are now expected to take an extra week off in October added to our normal week's holiday for this time of the year.
A JCB worker
The company has said that we will be paid for the week off but we have to pay them back when things improve.
This means that effectively we will have to make up 39 hours by working overtime without being paid for it or being paid an hour less than our normal 39 hours for the next 39 weeks.
At a business review meeting recently we were told that despite the recession JCB had still made £29 million profit this year and had never made a financial loss in its 64 year history. Why then do we have to work for nothing? Where has all the money gone?
Owner of JCB, Anthony Bamford saw his personal wealth increase by £600 million in 2008 to £1.8 billion. Not everyone at JCB is making sacrifices it seems.
A ballot will be held to secure agreement on this issue as JCB are breaking our contracts of employment and can only push this through with the acceptance of the workforce. At a union meeting to discuss this, we were told by the works' convenor that we have to accept this proposal or the alternative could be further redundancies.
Workers spoke out at the meeting saying that we should reject this latest attack and oppose any further redundancies. But before the meeting was over and the discussion ended the convenor walked out, saying he had another meeting to go to.
The bosses are holding a gun at the heads of workers in order to secure reductions in pay and conditions. We must oppose any further attacks by taking industrial action if necessary.
Workers at the Lindsey oil refinery and Linamar as well as the Vestas workers have inspired others to fight back against these kind of attacks and pass by union leaders who are not prepared to make a stand.
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In The Socialist 23 September 2009:
Prepare political challenge to cuts agenda
Education
Higher education - cuts cuts cuts!
Universities in crisis - Join Socialist Students
Defend education - stop the £2 billion cuts in spending
TUC
TUC congress: Anger on the fringes, inaction at the top
War and occupation
Afghanistan: An unwinnable war
Postal workers strike
Postal workers strike as national ballot continues
Vestas
Vestas workers determined to continue fight for jobs
Youth fight for jobs
Youth unemployment hits record level
Future Jobs Fund - massaging the figures
Socialist Party news and analysis
Campaign for a Salford workers' MP
International socialist news
Socialist Party MEP denounces "campaign of fear" on Lisbon Treaty
Workers' fightback grows in Italy
Socialist Party workplace news
Engineering construction: Stewards' forum recommends bosses' offer Workers should reject!
Portsmouth shipbuilders vote for strike
Bosses ask JCB workers for sacrifice
Battle over pensions means strike threat at Corus
Liverpool bin workers score victory
Socialist Party reviews
Listening to Grasshoppers by Arundhati Roy
The Dirty Thirty - Heroes of the Miners' Strike
The Anti-Flag album 'The People or the Gun'
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