BY PAMELA HOLMES
LONDON - "Safety first - no fast track to the graveyard,"
read placards carried by striking electricians working on the
Jubilee Line Extension (JLE). More than 600 members of the
Amalgamated Electrical and Engineering Union (AEEU) walked out
November 16 over company attempts to victimize workers for
protesting unsafe working practices.
About 500 of the electricians are employed by the contractor Drake & Scull (D&S). They are building an 11-mile extension to the London underground transport system, with a completion deadline of the opening of the Millennium Dome in 1999.
On November 11, fire alarms were sounded at London Bridge station as part of an evacuation drill. When the fire brigade arrived, electricians were still in the tunnels underground. The temporary fire alarm system was not working. Later, 12 workers who led protests about the unsafe working conditions, including the union safety representative, were told they were being transferred to another site. This was in blatant violation of the strict "last in, first out" policy that had been established on the job by union members. The D&S workers were already in dispute with the company over hours.
Strikers are confident that by sticking together they can defend job safety. "If they want to cross our picket lines, let them have a go!" declared Steve Kelly, one of the strike leaders at the Waterloo site.
The D&S workers have been joined by electricians working for other contractors on the job. "We are not cannon fodder and we are not expendable," senior steward Tony Miller said at a November 18 mass meeting attended by up to 400 strikers. A striker from the Bermondsey site said the same failure of fire alarms had happened there two months ago. "They had warning. People could die." Picketing is seven days a week, 7:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., at all JLE sites.
Pamela Holmes is a member of the AEEU. Rose Knight contributed to this article.