Workers at the electrical appliance company Miele are fighting back. One of their workers, organised by Unite, explains why.
Workers at the electrical appliance company Miele are fighting back. One of their workers, organised by Unite, explains why.
The
German electrical appliance company, Miele, boast that their washing machines
and vacuum cleaners are far superior than their rivals, and in fact are
probably the best in the world. Few would argue with this, but the way they are
treating their service engineers is nothing to boast about,
When
we were called in recently, to be told our vans were to be fitted with
trackers, most of us suspected something detrimental to us was on the horizon.
We were told that it was for our benefit and was to help build up useful data. Not
long after this, rumours of changes to our working conditions started to
emerge. In fact the company wanted to rip up our contract and replace it with a
new contract designed to make us work longer hours for little or no extra pay.
Miele
is a brand bought by the royals, celebs and millionaires. It’s not uncommon for their machines to be found standing in the kitchen of someone you watched on the tv the night
before. Miele’s appliances are several times more expensive than others but
this is not reflected in the salaries of us engineers who go to the homes,
hospitals and businesses to repair them. Not only are they expensive machines
but the repairs sometimes come to several hundred pounds.
With
engineers doing 7-8 jobs per day, the company is making a handsome profit. But
we only receive a tiny fraction of this. Now we are being told that we will
have to squeeze another job in at the end of the day for no extra pay! They have managed to do this by cutting
our lunch break and making the time traveling to and from jobs unpaid.
The
idea that workers should do unpaid work seems to be a common feature of
Cameron’s Britain.
Before
we were hit with this new contract, union membership at Miele was virtually
nonexistent. Service technicians have never really been militant as it used to
be a relatively well paid and respected profession, but unfortunately we have
seen real wages stagnate while our conditions have steadily been eroded over
the last 25 years. The only benefits left in being a service engineer is that
you weren’t being watched all day by your boss and if you worked hard you might
get to finish a bit early. Even this small benefit is now a thing of the past.
Speaking to field engineers at BT, Hotpoint and Hoover, the same and worse has
happened to them.
Many
companies are franchising out their service departments. This often means that
engineers are dismissed and then rehired as ‘self employed’. This means no sick
pay, no holiday pay and if you don’t tow the line, ‘no work for you today’!
Trackers are commonly being used to spy on engineers and see if more work can
be squeezed into their day.
This
has caused such widespread anger amongst Miele’s 150 engineers that within a
short period, over 50% of us had joined the Unite union to help fight back. The
engineers have decided to make a stand and either not sign the new contract or
sign under duress. This has completely shocked the management who have had it
their way for years. They said they were simply falling in line with their
rivals and that we have to be ‘competitive’. As many workers have found out,
‘competitive’ simply means attacking our working conditions and forcing us to
do extra work for no extra pay. With the looming threat of dismissal if we
didn’t sign, they expected us to look at the ever increasing dole queues, look
at the plight of our rivals and just sign.
After
management refused to budge in talks with Unite, the union balloted for
industrial action, before we even got our ballot papers through the door
management have begun to step back. They have now recognised
Unite, something they were very reluctant to do and they have begun to withdraw
some things from the new contract. We are electing shop stewards into a company
who ‘proudly’ boasted behind closed doors that ‘we don’t do unions here’.
I
feel proud of the engineers making a stand against the short term opportunist
nature of the management. We are constantly being told to ‘go that extra mile’
and just do a little more, but before you know it, that extra mile has been
added to your daily task! There’s a definite tendency to keep pushing us as far
as possible, so they can continuously squeeze out a bit more for no extra pay.
Over the last few years, service engineers have had the extra duties of
‘travelling salesmen’ with vans full of soap powder, dishwasher tablets and
other cleaning agents, we have to try and sell to customers while fixing their
appliance. Again extra work for no extra pay. Anyone who questions this is given
the same story about how increasing company profits will secure our future
employment. Those who don’t sell are pulled into the office where their future
at the company is ‘discussed’.
The
longer you work in service engineering the clearer it becomes that management
are working you into the ground. This is evident by the high levels of
engineers continuously off sick, with injuries, stress and depression.
The
importance of our job will be clear to anyone who’s washing machine or oven has
broken down. We all rely on such mod cons to always be there working away in
the corner and so too do these companies rely on their workforce to make this
possible. But continuously pushing us has provoked an anger that has totally
backfired on them.
The
bosses failed to see the anger of its own workforce that’s been bubbling under
the surface for years. This simply illustrates a tiny version of how events
will play out on a much larger scale. As workers become embattled in these
inevitable disputes, they become aware of not only their vital role in the
functioning of capitalism, but also the stark contradiction between the
interest of the workforce and the interest of the company.
We
have gone from a group of workers who kept their heads down, did what we were
told to do and ‘took it on the chin’, to a organised, unionised workforce who
won’t take it anymore. We are beginning to grow in confidence in our ability to
defend our conditions. Our dispute is in no way over, as many engineers are
still reluctant to make a stand. We advise customers’ everyday that If you
continuously overload your washing machine it will break down. Miele engineers
have clearly stated to the management, if they continuously push us to breaking point, unlike
machines, we will fight back.
