GMB Follow

SOME 450 British Airways workers at Heathrow attended a GMB union meeting last week to discuss the management's attacks on their pay. The company wants to cut the pay of 36,000 workers, including flight crew, cabin crew, engineers, administrative staff and ground staff. The attack amounts to a 4 percent pay cut, and the equivalent of 7,000 job losses at the company.

WORKERS AT whisky makers Chivas Regal took part in a third day of strike action on Wednesday of last week. The workers, members of the GMB, AEEU and MSF unions, voted to strike by an overwhelming four to one in an attempt to win a pay rise.

WORKERS AT Chivas Regal whisky plants across Scotland are striking over pay in a series of one-day strikes. The 1,000-strong workforce, who are members of the GMB, AEEU and MSF unions, were angered when management put forward a one-off payment of £650. The two one-day strikes have been 100 percent solid.

"NO TO privatisation" chanted 200 trade unionists and campaigners as they demonstrated through the streets of Milton Keynes last Saturday. The march was called by local trade unionists in the post workers' CWU union and the GMB union and was joined by children, parents and teachers from the local Save Our Schools campaign.

JOINERY WORKERS in the GMB union at Jeld-Wen, Lowestoft, entered their third week of one-day strikes this week against management pay freezes and cuts over many years.

Rolls Royce workers at Ansty in the West Midlands stepped up their fight against up to 1,300 job cuts with a second round of strike action on Monday of this week. Cars tailed back for miles from both gates as workers in the MSF and GMB unions caused massive disruption to the site. "We're having a serious effect," one engineer told Socialist Worker. The strike by 500 workers, mainly skilled engineers and office workers, has been solid.

Workers in the GMB union at Glasgow airport are to be balloted over strike action in protest over the sacking of a union representative. GMB Scottish secretary Robert Parker said, "GMB Scotland believes that British Airways (BA) set up our member. "BA needs to be aware that we will take whatever action to reinstate the sacked union rep."

SOME 120 workers for British Gas Services in London held a strike last week in a dispute over pay. The engineers, members of the GMB union, are demanding the firm pays all the workers the £100 inner London allowance which only a section of the workforce gets.

MANUFACTURING industry in Britain is bleeding to death. That's what the leader of one of Britain's biggest unions says. John Edmonds of the general workers' GMB union said this week, "Ministers must wake up. UK industry is not facing an inflation crisis or a sterling crisis. It is facing a manufacturing crisis on a scale not seen since the dark days of Thatcherism." Edmonds spoke out with thousands of car workers at Ford and Rover facing the sack. Asset-strippers Alchemy looked set to take Rover over at the end of this week, and multinational giant Ford is set to announce the effective closure of its Dagenham plant in Essex.

THE PRESS presented the recent meeting between Jacques Nasser of Ford and Bill Morris of the TGWU as a solution to the problems of racism and bullying at Ford's Dagenham plant. But many workers at Dagenham are left wondering what the deal will mean for them. Ford has agreed to a plan from the unions - the TGWU, AEEU, GMB and MSF - for a "Diversity and Equality Assessment Review".