The members of the USW Atomic Energy Workers Council stand in solidarity with our sisters and brothers in Unite the Union and Workers Uniting in the U.K. who are striking AWE plc - the Atomic Weapons Establishment - at Aldermaston and Burghfield in Berkshire for 48 hours from Wednesday January 18 at 12:01 a.m. and again for 48 hours on Monday January 30, also starting at 12:01 a.m.
The AWE bosses plan to eliminate the workers' defined benefit pension plan on January 31 and replace it with a defined contribution plan, which would rely on the vagaries of the stock exchange and where the final retirement income is not guaranteed. AWE plc, which employs about 4,000 people, is a consortium of two American-owned companies Lockheed Martin and Jacobs Engineering, and UK-listed Serco.
Unite members, who work as managers, and craft and manual workers, are furious at broken promises made by the Ministry of Defence in the early 1990s, which were underpinned by a ministerial statement to the Commons. Unite said that its members want to be taken back into the MoD pension scheme.
Unite members have voted by 92 per cent for strike action and by 97 per cent for industrial action short of a strike. They have already held two days of strike action on 14 November and 6 December 2016.
Currently, AWE scheme members pay 10 per cent of their salary into the scheme and the employer pays 26 per cent. Under the AWE’s new proposals, employees will be able to pay from three per cent to eight per cent or more; with AWE paying from nine per cent (if an employee pays three per cent) to 13 per cent (if an employee pays eight per cent or more).
The United Steelworkers call on AWE management and the U.K. government to act immediately to protect the retirement security of AWE workers who have devoted their working careers to protecting the security of the public. We support your just fight!