Picket Amey Rail Plc 22nd October - 11.30-1.30pm

bristol | corporations | news report Tuesday October 14, 2008 17:31 by bnb - bristol no borders http://bristolnoborders.wordpress.com/

Bristol No Borders - Picket Call Out

Support the Sacked Amey Workers! Equal Rights Without Borders Five cleaners employed by Amey (who have the contact for rail maintenance in Bristol) were sacked for "damaging the company image" on the 22nd of October.

Assemble (with whistles and banners) October 22nd 11.30am - 1.30pm outside:
Amey Rail Plc,Albert House, 111-117, Victoria St, Bristol. BS1 6AX

Five cleaners employed by Amey (who have the contact for rail maintenance in Bristol) were sacked for "damaging the company image" on the 2nd of October. They are going to appeal.

How were they damaging the company image? By belonging to a Trade Union and telling other staff at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in London where they work what was happening to them.

The text of the offending leaflet:

"TO THE NPL STAFF:

The Amey Cleaning Department are looking for your solidarity, because LAURA JORDAN site manager is discriminating and bullying us, also has violated our employment rights, refusing to follow the grievance procedures and taken decision over the employment regulations Act."

This is the latest in a series of measures taken against the cleaners since Amey, which is owned by Spanish multinational Ferrovia, took over the cleaning contract in May 2007 and found itself faced with a largely Latin American migrant workforce that had recently unionised and was taking steps to gain recognition. The first came last year, when the company invited workers to a ‘training session’, only to bolt the doors behind them and leave them in the care of the Home Office, which promptly deported three of them, one to Colombia and two to Brazil, for not having official documents.

Since then the number of cleaners has been reduced from thirty-six to fifteen as Amey looks to cut costs as much as possible. The current suspensions are a direct result of the remaining workers’ attempts to protest against this trend. Amey, which posted a net annual profit of a £75 million, is well versed in these tactics. It is a majority shareholder in Tubelines, which cleans parts of the Underground. Tube cleaners who went on strike for a living wage this summer were faced with a corporate response consisting of paper checks, immigration raids and deportations to Sierra Leone and the Congo.

This is the second day of actions supporting the sacked workers, with another demo happening on 22nd October outside an NPL conference in London.

It comes as part of a wider movement, including the Campaign Against Immigration Control and No Borders, demanding that that documents and border controls are dispensed with altogether, or migrant workers be regularised and given the documents they need.