by René Lavanchy
UNITE the union has promised to “rip up” an agreement on the use of agency workers at BMW’s Mini factory in Cowley after the company sacked 850 temporary staff last week.
The promise came after a strongly worded letter from joint general secretary Tony Woodley to BMW chairman Norbert Reithofer, in which he said Unite did not expect further cuts to be announced without consultation.
But Unite has also admitted that they did not know that so much temporary labour was based at the plant in the first place.
Around 970 agency workers out of the plant’s total workforce of 4,700 – more than a fifth – worked at Cowley until the cuts were announced. Three-hundred-and-fifty were laid off with one hour’s notice last week and 500 more are expected to follow shortly.
“We will be beginning again with that agreement. We’ll be ripping it up to make sure this process does not repeat itself”, a Unite spokesperson said.
Dave Osborne, Unite’s national secretary for the car industry, said: “The last thing we expect any employer to do is call our people into a room and give them an hour’s notice.”
The union on a national level had not been informed of the redundancies, he said.
At a meeting with BMW management last week, Mr Osborne called on BMW to offer compensation to the sacked workers, who are
not entitled to redundancy payments despite some having worked for the company for several years.
Asked why Unite had not complained about so many long-serving workers previously, a spokesperson said : “On a national level, we did not know.”
Unions are meanwhile expected to protest when the Government publishes its consultation paper on agency workers’ rights next month.
Labour MPs who campaigned for equal treatment of agency labour have called for the paper to include promises on redundancy pay and notice periods, but the department for business said last week it was not planning to include this.
