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16 November, 2006
Photos of the march and rally can be found here.
A march and mass rally against Imerys’ rash restructuring in the UK'S South West was held on Saturday, 18 November, in St. Austell.
Sponsored by UK trade unions Transport & General Workers Union (TGWU), Amicus, and GMB, the colourful march featured French, American and global union representatives, who reminded Imerys workers in the Cornwall and Devon region that the company will grant nothing without a fight. The march culminated with the rally and speeches at Polkyth Carpark.
The march and rally, in which 450 people participated, was part of a build-up to an industrial ballot that the UK unions will take in the South West Imerys, a Paris-based multinational that produces building materials. Imerys is targeting some 610 jobs to be made redundant at its kaolin mine and processing operations in the South West by the end of next year.
The restructuring has gained global attention through the TGWU’s outreach to other unions representing Imerys workers around the world.
Speakers at Saturday’s event included Serge Gonzales, from the French trade union Fédération Force Ouvrière (FO) Matériaux, Céramique et Thermique, who is Secretary of Imerys’ European Works Council; Keith Fulbright, a shop-floor leader at Imery’s Sylacauga, Alabama, calcium carbonate mine and plant, who is President of Local Branch 3-0516 of the United Steelworkers (USW) of America; and Dick Blin, a representative of the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine & General Workers' (ICEM) Unions, the Brussels-based Global Union Federation, which includes Imerys’ trade unions worldwide.
Also speaking were Jennie Formby, TGWU National Secretary, and Laura Lamprell, TGWU Regional Industrial Organiser.
“Imerys has exhibited utter contempt in regards to workers, their families and, indeed, the entire well-being of communities built by the labours of English China Clay,” said Formby. “That contempt has stretched from the manner in which they made the announcement last July, to the manner in which they’ve conducted the consultation process with the workers’ representatives.”
“We have told Imerys that their anti-social policies in the UK will affect their reputation globally,” said Serge Gonzales. “We demand of Imerys a reversal to the anti-worker conduct that it is displaying in various countries throughout Europe.”
In Sylacauga, Alabama, Imerys also has demonstrated a record of union-busting and non-adherence to its social obligations. The USW has fended off two de-unionisation efforts by the company since the turn of the decade, and it is only now, through renewed strength of the USW among the 500-member workforce, that the company has tempered its anti-worker agenda.
“The lesson that I bring about Imerys from America to workers of the South West is this: ‘Stay united, stay focused,’” said the USW’s Keith Fulbright. “Our experience is that Imerys will attack when they know the union is weak. It was only after we signed nearly every worker into the union that everyone began displaying that fact on the shop floor. It was only then that Imerys backed off.”
“Imerys must begin making real commitments to workers and communities of the South West,” said ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs. “The ICEM guarantees that unless fairness and respect are granted, we will do everything in our power to bring this dispute into all the company’s global workplaces.”