Opposing Victimisation at Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station

Last year, after a long and vibrant fight against some of the world’s most powerful capitalists, militant rank-and-file members of Unite were able to defeat their bosses. In this sweet victory, electricians across the country had united and forced some of Britain’s largest construction and engineering companies to jettison their attempts to force workers to accept new and vicious BESNA contracts that aimed to cut electricians’ and other skilled construction workers’ wages by up to 35%.

One of the ‘dirty seven‘ companies that lost out to the victorious workers was SPIE Matthew Hall. However, bitter at their loss of face owing to their inability to perform in capital’s Olympian race to the bottom, they soon sought their revenge by victimising the union reps who help lead the relentless fight against them.

But when earlier this year safety rep Jason Poulter was illegitimately suspended from his position at the Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station in Nottinghamshire his fellow workers took action into their own hands. Thus after union talks with their odious management had demonstrably failed to resolve the issue, in a display of solidarity by the rank-and-file union members, an unofficial walk-out of over 800 contract staff took place (see video), resulting in the immediate re-instatement of Jason.

So who, you might ask, are SPIE Matthew Hall, and what exactly do they stand for?

SPIE Matthew Hall are a construction and engineering company that is owned by their parent company, SPIE, which employs some 29,500 employees worldwide. SPIE Matthew Hall like most capitalist organizations, whose bread and butter is exploiting their workforce, always try their best to advertise their commitment to high ethical standards. But, as is always the case, such ethical treatment is strictly reserved for the management, not their workers… especially not for the rank-and-file trade unionists who continually oppose their company’s’ unethical conduct.

SPIE’s organizational history is a common tale of soaring profits and increasing exploitation; where larger and larger corporate bodies have taken it in turn to own the company, doing their best at every sale to squeeze increasing profits out of the business (that is, from their workers at the workers expense).

To outline a little of SPIE’s recent history: in 2003 SPIE was purchased by the British engineering giant AMEC, thus adopting the name AMEC SPIE. Then in 2006 AMEC sold AMEC SPIE to the private equity firm PAI Partners,* with the Group regaining its traditional name of SPIE. The following year SPIE then acquired AMEC’s Building and Facilities Services business which was rebranded as SPIE Matthew Hall. While in 2011 an investment consortium led by U.S. buyout firm Clayton Dubilier & Rice (CD&R) purchased SPIE from PAI Partners for a tidy €2.1 billion.

Here one of the key people to oversee CD&R’ s purchase of SPIE was Roberto Quarta, an individual who in addition residing on SPIE’s board of directors (and having recently stepped down from the board of the job-slashing BAE Systems), presently acts as the chairman of the global engineering group IMI. Here on IMI’s board of opulence Quarta sits alongside SERCO Group’s chairman, Kevin Beeston; SERCO being the privitisation specialists who are profiting from the ongoing dismantlement of the welfare state.

Given the intimate relationship between SPIE and AMEC — SPIE board member (and former chair until 2010) Jean Monville served as a board member and then CEO of AMEC between 1997 and 2006 — one might note that AMEC’s current chairman (John Connolly) additionally acts as the chairman of the Tory-loving, worker-hating corporation, G4S. While one of AMEC’s more recent CEO’s is BAE Systems board member Sir Peter Mason, who prior to heading up AMEC was the CEO of leading ‘dirty seven’ member Balfour Beatty.

Socialist Party members stand in solidarity with all workers facing capitalisms brutal attacks on their livelihoods. This meant that early yesterday morning (26 July) Socialist Party members from both Nottingham and Leicester joined with local and national rank-and-file trade union activists at the Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station in supporting resistance to the ongoing victimisation and blacklisting of union reps. Unite Construction Rank and File Network members used this opportunity to leaflet for an upcoming national meeting to be held on 11th August at Conway Hall in London (from 2 to 5pm).

* One of the key people at PAI Partners who helped oversee the purchase of AMEC SPIE was current Atos board member Bertrand Meunier. For criticisms of Atos, see “Atos Origin – profiting from pain.”