Press release 9/4/08
Airport workers reply to UNITE
statement
- A Fabrication from start to finish
Three sacked airport shop stewards,
Gordon McNeill, Madan Gupta and Chris Bowyer, began a
hunger strike at Transport House Belfast on Monday 7 April demanding justice
from their union, Unite. Rather than attempt to resolve this issue through
direct dialogue with the shop stewards, the union's answer has been coercion –
in the form of instructions to the police to forcibly remove them from the
building – and misinformation – in the form of a Unite public statement that completely
falsifies what has happened in this dispute and misrepresents what the
protesting shop stewards are demanding.
This statement, which was issued to
the press and widely circulated by email, carries the dramatic headline
"Protesters demand £1 million each from Unite". It begins:
"Protesters outside Unite HQ in
This is false from start to finish.
The workers are not on hunger strike for "one million each". They are
on hunger strike because, apart from a small amount paid for hardship last
year, the union has not paid or offered to pay them a single penny in
compensation for the hardship it caused them.
They are also on hunger strike
because, contrary to what is claimed by the Unite statement, the union has not
paid the legal costs. They have paid only part of the legal costs, leaving the
workers with a huge legal bill that they will never be able to pay.
In short they are on hunger strike
because the actions of their union led to them losing their jobs and are now
leaving them considerably out of pocket.
How can the Unite leadership make
assertions about what the shop stewards want when they are refusing to meet
with them to ask what their demands are? Since the start of their hunger strike
the only "negotiator" who the union has sent to talk to the strikers
has been from the PSNI [Police Service
Northern Ireland] ! Since when does any union
"negotiate" with its members via the police?
The Unite leadership can end the
hunger strike at any time by arranging a face-to-face meeting with the shop
stewards and negotiating a resolution.
What the dispute was about?
The shop stewards are issuing this
response to answer, one by one, the false claims made by Unite in their
statement. In considering these points it is important to keep in mind what
this six year long dispute has been about.
It began when 24 airport security workers were
sacked by their employer, ICTS, for striking for a 50
pence per hour pay rise. The company went ahead with the sackings only after
the T&GWU official responsible for the airport met secretly with ICTS management
and gave them a letter repudiating the strike. This is the main ground for
their complaint that the union was complicit in helping ICTS get rid off them.
Last August the shop stewards won
their long legal battle with ICTS.
They secured a groundbreaking legal
ruling that their sacking amounted to political discrimination on grounds of
their trade union and socialist beliefs. The issue of payment of their legal
bill only arises because the union had previously told them they had no legal
case and gave them no legal backing, leaving them to meet the full costs of the
case.
Have the union reneged on its
commitments?
Last September the shop stewards
called off a protest at Transport House only after they received an assurance
from Unite General Secretary, Tony Woodley, that the union would pay the legal
costs of the Industrial Tribunal case, that it would fund the costs of
defending any Appeal against the Tribunal ruling and that it would come back,
within seven days, with an offer of compensation for its role in contributing
to the 24 workers being sacked.
The Unite statement states that
"the union has complied in full with the assurances given in September
2007". This is completely untrue.
Below are the facts of what has
happened. These show that the Unite leadership has not honoured a single one of
the commitments they gave last year.
1) The legal costs of the case
against ICTS
Unite's claims
The Unite statement says that the
union has paid £106,000 of the legal costs and "is involved in
constructive and amicable negotiations with the solicitors to reach agreement
over outstanding areas of claim". It goes on: "There is very little
chance that Mr McNeill or Mr Gupta will be required to pay a single penny
towards the costs bill".
The facts
The total legal bill for the
Tribunal case is over £200,000. When discussing last August and September
whether they would pay this bill, Tony Woodley and the other Unite
representatives expressed concern that the bill might be too high and that they
could not be expected to pay any amount that the solicitor might present. Their
concerns were taken on board by the shop stewards and it was agreed that the
union and the shop steward's legal teams would submit the bill to the
The union subsequently reneged on
this agreement and this is the root of the present problem. Instead of taking
the bill to the
To date the workers have had to pay
£38000 from their own pockets just to keep the case alive. Even if the union
give way and make another payment as has been hinted the workers would end up
having to pay around £20,000 in addition to the £38,000 they have already paid.
What the workers want
They want a commitment that the full
bill will be paid. After all they won a victory for all trade unionists and
only incurred this bill because of the
2) The cost of an Appeal
Unite's claims
ICTS have appealed the Tribunal
decision. The Appeal date was originally set for the first week of April but
has been postponed until June. Unite's statement
claims that "The costs of the appeal are being paid by the union." It
goes on "The agreement to pay the appeal costs was notified to Breslin McCormick solicitors several weeks ago and will be
well known to the individuals."
They also say that "amicable discussions" on the costs took
place between legal representatives "as recently as the morning of Friday
4 April".
The facts
Last September the
Unite has since reneged on this
agreement. The claims made in its statement are pure fiction. The union has
refused every request from the shop stewards' legal team to discuss the rate at
which the barristers would be paid. How could they have notified Breslin McCormick of their agreement to pay the appeal
costs when they have not entered into any discussions about what those costs
would be?
As for the "amicable
discussions" "between legal representatives" on Friday 4 April,
there were not only no "amicable discussions" there were no
discussions of any sort on that day, as Breslin
McCormick will confirm. It is deplorable that when faced with such a serious
issue as three of their members putting their health at risk in order to
achieve justice, the Unite leadership just make up the facts as they go along
in order to try to present themselves in a good light.
The
barristers employed by the shop stewards to represent them at the
Tribunal and the Appeal have recently informed their solicitors that, because
of the union's refusal to commit to pay their costs, they are returning all the
legal documents relating to the case and will not be handling the appeal.
As things stand the shop stewards will
not be able to defend the case.
ICTS will win by default. The shop
stewards will lose the compensation they were awarded by the Tribunal. The
trade union movement will lose the added protection against dismissal that was
gained by the Tribunal judgement.
What the workers want?
They want Unite to implement the
agreement reached last September..
This means immediate discussions
with the legal team who handled the Tribunal case with a view to re-employing
them at an agreed rate and a commitment that these agreed costs will be paid in
full.
3) The "million pounds
compensation"
Unite's claims
Unite's statement says: "The union had
hoped to reach agreement in relation to this dispute, but the individuals have
demanded payments of I million each to settle the dispute. Mr Woodley and Unite
are unable to make such payments…"
The facts:
Last September the union agreed that
it would come back "within seven days" with an offer of compensation
for the fact that the union contributed to 24 of its members being sacked. They
broke this commitment. No offer was made within the seven days. Not a penny has
been offered since.
The shop stewards had hoped that
last September's deal would be an end to this dispute and no further action
would be needed. But when Unite failed to honour what had been agreed they
investigated the alternative angle of a legal case against the union for
damages. They have made it clear all along that they do not want to go down
this road. They do not want to have both sides spend money on solicitors and
barristers to resolve something that could and should be dealt with by negotiation.
They have employed a solicitor, Fintan Canavan, of Jones and
Company to look into the possibility of a legal case. He has been involved in
negotiations with the union solicitors about possible compensation.
The figure of £1 million has
appeared because this was put forward by Fintan Canavan, on behalf of the shop stewards, as an initial
figure to discuss. It was made clear that it was put forward for negotiating
purposes.
However it seems that the trade
union negotiators at the head of Unite have never heard of negotiation. They
are now using the fact that this figure was ever mentioned as an excuse to
break off all negotiations and refuse to make any offer. This is in breach of
all the commitments given both to Fintan Canavan and to the shop stewards directly.
For example, Fintan
Canavan met with the union legal representative in
January of this year. He was told that the workers were asking for much more
than the union would give and responded by saying, if that was the case, make
an offer. The union agreed, following a phone call from the legal
representative to Tony Woodley, that an emergency Finance and General Purposes
Committee meeting would be called and an offer, much lower than what was asked
for, would be made. The emergency meeting was never called and a subsequent
normal F&GPC meeting decided that no offer would be made.
The issue at contention now is not,
as Unite are misleadingly trying to claim, that the shop stewards are insisting
on 1 million, it is that the union are refusing to offer them a single penny.
What the workers want
They want Unite to do what it said
it would do last September and again in February and make them an offer. They
want an immediate face-to-face meeting with senior representatives of the union
to discuss and hopefully to reach a final agreement on this.
Conclusion
It would not be difficult to resolve
this dispute so long as both parties want it resolved. Unfortunately the
response of the Unite leadership in calling in the police and launching a
campaign of misinformation indicates that they are not interested in resolving
it.
All trade union members and
activists should immediately contact the Unite leadership in
Tony Woodley, Jimmy Kelly and others
at the top of Unite must be held directly responsible for the deteriorating
health of the hunger striking shop stewards.
Issued by Gordon McNeill, Madan Gupta and Chris Bowyer 21:26pm Tuesday 8th April 2008
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