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12 September, 2011
A UK defense contractor who reneged on terms contained in a collective agreement last year met industrial action last week. Members of Unite the Union in the London and Eastern Region began an overtime ban and work to rule at the Wattisham Airbase in Suffolk on 7 September against Morson Wynnwith, a contractor for AgustaWestland which manages a fleet of Apache helicopters for the British Ministry of Defence.
The 100 engineers belonging to Unite entered into a four-year labour agreement in April 2010 with Morson Wynnwith, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Manchester-based Morson Group Plc. Part of that accord called for wage parity to occur over the four years with Unite engineers employed by the same company at Middle Wallop Airbase in Hampshire.
The Wattisham engineers, most of whom are ex-military personnel, earn £3,000 annually less than Unite members at Middle Wallop, who service and maintain the same military equipment. Last spring – a year into the agreement – MorsonWynnwith initially offered a 2% wage increase. The military contractor later increased the offer to 2.6%, the same wage increase accepted at Hampshire, and told the Wattisham unit that service and maintenance work done on Apaches at Middle Wallop is more complicated.
Engineers at Wattisham rejected the 2.6% offer in June and immediately passed a strike ballot with a 71-14 vote. Eighty-one workers then voted for job actions short of a strike.
“If these skilled workers had accepted that proposal,” said Region Officer Mark Robinson, “then they would have fallen further behind.” He added that the engineers do not take strike action lightly because they recognize the importance of their work related to the battlefield, but Morson Wynnwith’s backtracking over last year’s forced the issue.
The dispute is under review by UK’s Advisory, Conciliation, and Mediation Services (ACAS) and a report is slated to be issued in October. Unite and Morson Wynnwith are expected to talk next week but if there is no movement by the company, job actions could be escalated.
The engineers at Wattisham Airbase are responsible for maintenance on the Apache helicopter, which the UK Army Air Corp is using in Afghanistan. They do complete servicing and maintenance on each unit of the specialized aircraft after 600 flying hours.