Romec Strike Vote

27^th January 2014
For immediate release

 Romec engineers vote yes to defend job security

The Communication Workers Union has today (Monday 27 January) welcomed the decision by engineers, employed by the maintenance and facilities contractor Romec, to take strike action over attacks on their job security.
 Over 94 per cent of the engineers voting said yes to taking strike action.
Romec provides services for Royal Mail and several commercial customers, but, at the end of last year some of these contracts were abruptly terminated, potentially placing engineers’ jobs in jeopardy.
Romec is seeking to abuse TUPE legislation in order to avoid redeployment costs when moving employees out of the company. CWU has previously agreed a Managing Surplus Agreement (MSA) procedure with Romec. However, the company is now refusing to honour this long-standing agreement.  
The ballot closed today. The earliest that strike action could take place would be 3^rd February.
Ray Ellis, CWU national officer said: “Romec is seeking to abuse TUPE legislation to force long-serving, loyal employees out of the company in order to avoid redeployment costs. Romec has refused to honour its obligation to its employees and is now riding roughshod over employees’ job security. I fully support the engineers who want to take a stand over these attacks and hold Romec to the agreements they have made with the union. The company’s behaviour defies belief.
“Rather than discuss the potential staff surplus with the union, as it is obliged to do under the MSA, Romec unilaterally decided to allocate employees to artificially constructed duties to enable them to be transferred out against their will or face being treated as having voluntarily resigned without compensation.
“The MSA is the key agreement protecting our Romec members’ job security and Romec’s cynical attempts to bypass it show callous disregard to those employees directly affected and represent a threat to every Romec member.”
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