Camden UNISON members at the Holmes road depot have voted unanimously in favour of industrial action in defence of their shop steward, Will Jennings, who is being victimised and TUPE transferred to a private contractor. Consequently the indicative ballot will now be expanded to all Camden council UNISON members.
The Camden UNISON Branch Committee decided to call an emergency meeting for our members in Holmes Road depot to mobilise support for Will Jennings who is being victimised by CBM Management.
Will is being threatened with transfer to Volkers, a private contractor, as part of a so called reorganisation in which his was the only Camden job to be affected.
Early in 2015, when they were planning this move and in order to justify this transfer they changed some of Will’s work. All of a sudden he was doing more work on estate repairs and less of his usual work on the highways. They have now told him that because of this move they consider his job to be part of the contract with Volkers.
Even if we accept the way they have fiddled his workload (which we don’t) there are plenty of opportunities to keep him on the Council payroll but they are refusing to consider any of these. For example there are nearly 30 agency workers at Holmes Road – many doing jobs Will could do.
We obviously think that the reason behind this attack on Will is that he is one of your UNISON stewards and as such has been a thorn in the side of local management – especially over Health and Safety issues. They say it’s just a coincidence that the single worker being transferred happens to be a steward.
The Branch Committee is demanding that the immediate threat to transfer Will on the 1st May is withdrawn. We then want the Council to investigate how this situation has been allowed to develop. Most of all we are demanding that the Council instructs local management to sort out a job for Will within the Housing Maintenance team.
We need your support to make the Council back off and reinstate Will. If your managers can get away with victimising a union steward they will feel confident to go the offensive over other issues and members in the section will know the history of management bullying at Holmes Road.
An indicative ballot for industrial action will be sent to members by email in the near future so please watch this space and vote immediately and vote Yes for action to defend your representatives and your union!