Manufacturing

Our manufacturing message to Labour:

Employment rights to protect jobs
Unite has seen that the UK falls far short of international standards on rights to organise and take industrial action, tackle workplace injustice and bargain collectively.

Unite Amicus Section wants:

  • improved information and consultation rights when companies are planning to restructure
  • improved redundancy pay
  • obligations on employers to provide support to displaced workers and their communities as part of major redundancy proposals.

Equal rights for agency workers
More and better rights are needed to prevent exploitation of workers employed through agencies or on temporary contracts.

Unite is also campaigning for an industrial relations framework that gives trade unions rights to collective bargaining over the use of agency and temporary workers in sectors or in individual workplaces.

We will continue to campaign for equal rights for all workers with effect from day one of employment.

Pension protection
Unite has campaigned successfully for workers’ pensions to be protected when companies go bust. This resulted in the Pension Protection Fund and the Financial Assistance Scheme being established. Unite Amicus Section is now pressing for fuller compensation arrangements to achieve the 100% that members deserve.

Build affordable housing for working people
Unite is campaigning so that local authorities can borrow and invest in housing on the same terms as housing associations and private companies. A major investment in a new housing agenda is required, with local authorities able to build the homes they need.

End the privatisation of public services
Public service means access for all. This requires financial and political investment. Privatisation (including PFI/PPP) is fragmenting public services and not delivering value for money.

Support UK manufacturing
Unite is campaigning for the following to strengthen UK manufacturing:

  • investment in apprenticeships, workforce training and an expansion in numbers of skilled manufacturing production jobs
  • restoration of the labour rights lost during the last Conservative Government through the passage into law of the Trade Union Freedom Bill
  • compulsory social planning responsibilities for companies who decide to offshore jobs or make large scale redundancies
  • repayment of grants or other government aid given to companies that do not honour their obligations to provide secure employment to local communities.

Click here for more information about how to get involved and attend the demonstration