{"id":13683,"date":"2017-10-05T14:49:49","date_gmt":"2017-10-05T13:49:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=13683"},"modified":"2017-10-05T14:50:20","modified_gmt":"2017-10-05T13:50:20","slug":"brutal-pay-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=13683","title":{"rendered":"‘Brutal pay policy’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Unite members at the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant are gearing up to take industrial action over a \u00e2\u20ac\u0098completely unacceptable\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 1.5 per cent pay offer that has been imposed by management.<\/p>\n

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Unite said today (October 5) that it will be informing Sellafield Ltd – a Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) company – in the near future of the dates for industrial action.<\/p>\n

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This follows an industrial action ballot of its craft members which saw 90 per cent vote for strikes.<\/p>\n

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Unite has more than 1,100 members, such as key electrical staff,\u00c2\u00a0 who will strike and this will ratchet up pressure on the management as the GMB union has already started to take industrial action.<\/p>\n

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The dispute centres on the company\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s unilateral decision to impose a 1.5 per cent pay award from last month, backdated to April 1.<\/p>\n

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Unite regional officer Graham Williams said, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bThis impending strike action follows on from Sellafield Ltd\u00c2\u00a0 imposing on our members a pay rise well below the retail price index (RPI) rate of inflation which is presently running at 3.9 per cent.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThis means the workforce will actually see another effective pay cut after last year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s insulting 0.25 per cent offer,” he added.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bTo date, the Sellafield workforce has delivered over \u00c2\u0141230 million\u00c2\u00a0 savings in the last two years and is expected to make a further \u00c2\u0141300 million in savings this year.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe bosses\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 claim that \u00e2\u20ac\u0098no strings are attached\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 is a bit rich when Sellafield Ltd has already introduced far inferior terms and conditions for all new starters. They have also introduced a new pension scheme with inferior benefits in retirement.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bFor example, a one per cent increase in pay for our members this year would equate to \u00c2\u0141463,300 and Sellafield Ltd believes this is unaffordable even though by the end of this financial year our workforce will have delivered over half a billion pounds worth of savings for the UK taxpayer.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bMuch of the saving is being delivered by the frontline workforce.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe management now needs to come to the table and negotiate in a constructive manner, otherwise industrial action by the Sellafield unions will ratchet up further and bring the site\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s operations to a halt.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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The Unite strike committee has formulated a timetable for strike action and\u00c2\u00a0 the management will be told about the dates of the first walkout within the legal timeframe.<\/p>\n

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Graham Williams added, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe see the shadowy hand of ministers guiding the management to impose this brutal pay policy.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bOur members are highly skilled and trained professionals who are working in an extremely hazardous, arduous and security-vetted environment.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThey are carrying out important work in the national interest and it is imperative that the wage rates are maintained at a commensurate level to reflect their contribution to Sellafield\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s continued success.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Unite members at the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant are gearing up to take industrial action over a \u00e2\u20ac\u0098completely unacceptable\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 1.5 per cent pay offer that has been imposed by management.   Unite said today (October 5) that it will be informing Sellafield Ltd – a Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) company – in the near future […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[773,437,275],"wps_subtitle":"Sellafield workers to take industrial action ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13683"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13683"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13683\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13684,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13683\/revisions\/13684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}