Kone lift engineers on strike at Gateshead’s site on the Team Valley Trading Estate , photo E Brunskill (Click to enlarge: opens in new window)
Lift workers strike over unreliable ‘spy in the cab’
Across the country engineering service workers from lift firm Kone voted by 81% for strike action. The workers are holding Monday strikes in a dispute over tracking devices in their vehicles which are unreliable.
The Unite rep from Gateshead’s site on the Team Valley Trading Estate explained how the company is intent on installing these devices without an agreed framework document.
He said: “We don’t have a problem with tracking for health and safety, etc. However, we do object strongly to unreliable data. In one case an engineer was supposed to have driven over 1,000 miles in one day without refuelling!”
There is clear anger amongst the strikers that Kone intends to cross reference Unite members’ timesheets and use the tracking device as a disciplinary tool. The rep explained: “We already have a benchmark agreement in place which clearly states that new technology cannot be used to substantiate our timesheet entries.”
The mood at the Gateshead site is rock solid and if no agreement is made with Kone there are further strikes on the cards over the next 12 weeks.
The other main Kone sites are at Chertsey, Glasgow, Keighley and Warrington.
Elaine Brunskill
This version of this article was first posted on the Socialist Party website on 13 April 2015 and may vary slightly from the version subsequently printed in The Socialist.
