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6 October, 2008
Members of two ICEM affiliates in the UK are on the verge of escalating industrial action at worksites around the Sellafield nuclear facility in Cumbria. Unite the Union and GMB represent about half of Sellafield’s 10,000 workers, and they began limited industrial action on 19 September.
Unite and GMB members have rejected a 2% pay deal, a proposed increase that is below inflation. Management has also offered a bonus scheme, but the two unions say too many strings are attached for workers to attain the efficiency bonuses. A ballot was counted in early September which revealed that members of the two unions voted by nearly 90% for strike action.
The union Prospect, representing engineering and managerial staff, accepted a 2.5% pay increase plus a 2.5% bonus in mid-September from Sellafield Ltd., operator of the facility on behalf of Britain’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority.
Unite and GMB leaders at Sellafield will decide on Wednesday, 8 October, whether to escalate industrial action. For the past two weeks, workers have strictly performed only work in their own job classifications, refused to attend meetings on efficiencies, and refused cross-departmental work.
If management does not re-open talks and improve the offer, strike action could begin on 16 October.
The dispute has been simmering since late March, when 2008 pay talks should have been concluded. The massive Sellafield site, with a technical facility in Risley and a former uranium enrichment site in Capenhurst, will undergo a massive multi-year reprocessing and clean-up project, estimated to cost £1.3 billion a year.