Alex Smith, Liverpool Socialist Party
In mid-April, around 50 electricians working on the Vynova construction site in Runcorn, on the banks of the River Mersey, walked out after concerns they raised around safety and work practices were repeatedly ignored by their bosses. Within 24 hours of the walkout, the employer had backed down, and the electricians’ safety and work practice demands were met. This represents a massive victory in protecting the public from potentially dangerous practices, and in forcing the bosses back in their fight to deskill the electrical trade.
Electricians involved said their walkout was a response to F.B. Taylor, a cable contractor operating at the site, using non-electricians to do cabling work – a practice that could pose health and safety risks. Electricians said they raised these concerns five times with management, but were ignored or not taken seriously. “Consequently, we felt we were left with no choice other than to withdraw our labour.”
The electricians walked off the site after a joint meeting of Unite and GMB union members. After the walkout, a number of mechanical staff employed by another contractor, BGEN, also “cabined up” (stopped work, but stayed on-site) in solidarity with the electricians’ action.
“The pressure of the whole workforce forced the issue”, another electrician commented, adding that, as a result of the walkout, “the work practices around cabling we were concerned about have now ceased.”
Electricians pay large sums of money in order to get the training and skills needed to maintain safety at such sites. One electrician told The Socialist that the presence of potentially explosive substances, such as ethylene, on the site also concentrated the minds of those who walked out.
There is a suspicion that Vynova ‘Project Summer’, a project being carried out at the site, might be behind schedule, and BGEN could be subject to a significant financial penalty for late completion of the project. “The whole thing feels like provocation, almost as if the employers are looking to force us into industrial action in order to give themselves an excuse for not competing the wider project on time.”
Deskilling
This victory should provide a boost to the ‘No to ESO’ campaign to force back deskilling plans to train new ‘electrical support operatives’ (ESO) at Hinkley Point nuclear power plant.
Electricians also said that the Labour mayor of the Liverpool City Region, Steve Rotheram, should publicly back the successful action they took, and oppose any moves employers might now take to punish them for their defiance – such as punitively reducing the weekend work available to sparks who walked out.
If Rotheram refuses to do this, then it again brings into question why Unite and the GMB should support Labour candidates whose elected representatives refuse to defend Unite and GMB members in struggle. The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) is standing in the current round of local elections precisely because Labour representatives refuse to provide the political representation that the trade unions desperately need.
