On Friday the 5th of January more than a
hundred construction workers protested outside the Paradise Street site, the biggest
construction project in Liverpool. The workers,
mainly Amicus electricians also included other trades and TGWU and GMB members,
were calling for the enforcement of national agreements, for instance the JIB
and NAECI.
A key demand of the protesters is to be
directly employed by the construction companies carrying out the work and not
employed via an agency. Agencies are used to undermine trade union
organisation, a worker who becomes a shop steward can simply be sent back to
the agency, and as a way of eroding pay rates by the use of enforced bogus selfemployment.
An unemployed construction worker attempting to gain employment is in a poor
bargaining position when the only offer of work is as a selfemployed tradesman
hired via an agency.
Construction workers terms and conditions
are also being undermined by the use of migrant workers who are being cynically
exploited by construction companies. The bosses will pay vastly inferior wages
when they think they can get away with it. We demand the going rate for all
workers. It is a disgrace that the only legally enforceable rate of pay in the UK is the
minimum wage. We demand that the nationally agreed rates are the minimum
construction workers should expect.
The protest was part of a wider ongoing
campaign seeking to organise construction workers, a notoriously difficult area
for trade unions.
