This is the first of what I hope will be regular news from Warrinton08.
I'm Wilf Williams, an experienced Amicus rep with ICL, and was part of D2D when D2D was sold to Celestica in the early 1990s. At the beginning of this year my team returned to ICL, or Fujitsu SErvices as it's now called, under a TUPE agreement.
This brought a small group of Amicus members with a recognition agreement on to the WAR08 site.
There was apparently no union membership, and management had been telling staff (but deniabley) that joining a union, and especially organising a union, would be potential grounds for dismissal.
The posting of a few notices, showing that a union could exist on the site, unleashed considerable demand from those staff for union representation, and a recruiting effort returned about 40 new members.
With the small number of pre-existing members we now have over 50 at WAR08 and 40+ at WAR13. We've also been able to hold an on-site meeting with regional organiser Carol Devereux - a first for Warrington.
We are planning a further meeting, probably off site, as the management are now reacting to our presence, with Gary Owen, our regional officer, on March 25th - more details on this to follow.
We hope to build on our new membership with a view to seeking formal recognition on the site. As part of thia effort, we'd appreciate any help, particularly in determining the number of people in the building and their organisational breakdown, so we can select a bargaining unit in which we have a majority.