Category: Thales

Thales Update:

Dear Colleagues,

Following Tuesday’s very well attended Branch Meeting it was unanimously agreed that we are in dispute with Thales

Whilst we’ve been willing to work with the company regarding their changes, all our counter suggestions have been dismissed. The company even went as far to state that whatever we say, they will be making their changes. That attitude has made a mockery of our so called consultation.

The reality is, we’ve been told and that for them is the end of the matter.

Our members have made it totally clear that they reject the changes proposed by the company.

• They won’t accept inferior rosters
• They won’t accept compulsory redundancy
• They won’t accept less staff and more managers
• They won’t accept an their union and representatives being ignored

I’ve asked for this matter to be referred to Acas in the hope of even at this late stage this matter being resolved.

I have to say, I’ve had no positive reply, just an email saying we aren’t working in  partnership i.e. letting the company impose change for the worse on our members

UNITY IS STRENGTH

Following the latest meeting this week between Thales management and RMT reps, we made it clear that we will not accept compulsory redundancies, and that voluntary redundancy and alternative post opportunities must be the primary goal.

We insisted that :-

1. The compulsory redundancy situation is withdrawn, as the proposed re-organisation shows post vacancies that our members can fill.

2. Thales bring back ‘in-house’ the out-sourced workload, for example analogue to CAS cut-overs and exchange surveys.

Despite this, Thales are still rail-roading the consultations through and as a consequence, we are in dialog with regards to the selection assessment criteria because we feel it is biassed, unfair and discriminatory.

In addition to this, Thales are trying to start a consultation on roster changes. We have insisted this must not go ahead as firstly it will cause unacceptable additional stress to those at risk and secondly the machinery for roster negotiations has not been agreed by Thales.

It is possible that Thales will adapt the same approach with roster as they have with redundancies and plough on without completing the consultation process or reaching an agreement. Therefore it is very important for all shift workers that no-one gets directly involved with management in discussions regarding new rosters, even if offers sound tempting. We are very fortunate to be in a unionised workplace where rosters have to be agreed between Thales and the union (and its members) rather than having them forced upon us, and as such we must use the machinery put in place to do this. Short-circuiting the machinery serves only to fragment the unity and throttle the effectiveness of the union, something that no paid-up member would wish for. All roster negotiations must be done through union reps.

For us to reach a successful outcome on these matters, it is important that we all stick together. It is also imperative that we support each other unconditionally, that is to say any one of us could be at risk of redundancy at any moment as Thales have not yet made final proposals. There must be no ‘I’m alright’ attitude. This process does not stop when Thales have selected their redundancy victims, its stops when management stop attacking our T’s and C’s and our right to a fair work-home balance. Strength in unity.

The 2015 Pay Claim for Thales RSS and DTS is below

PayClaim_ThalesRSSDTS 30 1 15

Dear ALL

I have requested that formal meetings start properly. The aim of the talks is with a view to reaching agreement regarding:

• Ending the threat to operational jobs‎ and compulsory redundancy
• Looking at Operational needs without amendment to rosters and the massive impact associated with this
• Formalising the ‘roster’ agreement to facilitate the above talks
• Working together to review your management structures to ascertain how they can be ‎reorganised to give the management cover you start within existing headcount
• Work together to examine efficiency savings and better working practices‎. With mutual benefit

I have also notified Thales that for clarity that following discussions with our members that they reject compulsory redundancies and the loss of operational jobs to create more managers.

We therefore wish to start meaningful discussions and end the perception of this being railroaded in.

To that end I have also requested that the formal one to one discussion are halted.

Dear Members

Today we again met with Thales HR and management regarding the redundancies announced in December.  Back in December it was announced that up to 14 positions would be removed within JF07 in Field Services and Services.  After the meeting today we have been informed that it has been identified that there were 6 vacant positions which will now not be filled and therefore there are now up to 8 positions that will be removed.  We have not been given any more details on these 8 positions but have been promised that we will receive this at a meeting on Tuesday 13th January.

Last week we were also shown an over view presentation on improving efficiencies within DTS, again there was not much detail but they are looking at changing the organisation charts and also change some rosters for people that currently work 12 hour shifts to 8hr shifts.

The reality is that it appears that Thales wish to recruit more management level grades, at the expense of front line jobs. This is clearly controversial and seems at odd with a drive for making the company more efficient. However, it is very important to stress that we are still very much at the initial stage of these talks, therefore we have stated that we want full details of the proposals before we can even start to fully engage with the employer.

It is also important to recognise that roster changes are very controversial and that our members will not accept compulsory redundancy. We therefore have stressed both this matters to senior Thales management

Following lengthy discussions with Thales Rail Signals and LUL, we believe it is likely that we will avoid redundancies through inter company secondment for a limited period. However, until any arrangements are finally agreed the RMT have made it very clear to Thales that we will not be accepting any compulsory job losses and that we do not believe that their redundancy selection process is fair. We have also attended every appeal and have made a stringent case for every person affected by the threat of redundancy

Dear Colleagues,

The following has been discussed with Thales management and agreed:

• We will meet on the RSS side with HR at 14:00 on Monday
• Talks will in effect stay conducted by company level reps
• I will set up a meeting with Nina ref DTS
• The RSS numbers are now likely to be 8 or less
• The DTS numbers are also likely to be less
• I hope to receive a list of those affected asap and will check who our members are with Unity House
• There will be a full company council meeting on a regular basis to overview this process
• Again we hope to work together to make this as pain free as possible

Many thanks

Dear ALL

The first meeting took place today and your reps will be going through the proposals on Wednesday next week. The key points to remember from is that we will be looking in detail and intend to come up with alternatives to save the jobs of our members. This is very early in the process and we will now need to go through the detail of what the company wants to do. Further information will follow as we have more meetings. Minutes for GTS Announcement Meeting

Dear Colleague

The RMT are meeting Thales Senior Management at 0930 Friday 14th November to discuss proposed job losses.

To be clear, we will do our job & make sure you are represented strongly and fully. Once we have full details, we will be holding meetings with our members to keep you fully informed.

We have no reason to fear or worry.

Unity is our strength

Below is the latest Thales Roster proposal

Draft GTS Rostering Rules and guidelines_rmt_12_8_14_blank