Unite the Union plans ballot for strike action amid claims a representative is sacked by Armagh, Banbridge and Craigavon Council
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NewsTranscript
00:00On the 6th of June, a shop suite for Unite the Union from Armagh depot was sacked.
00:08But what we believe at this stage is that ABC council, senior management and senior HR represent a hostile environment for trade unionists here.
00:18And we believe this goes back to the very militant strike action of two years ago that delivered on pay and conditions for workers.
00:27So the council are just denying that, basically that they're not hostile to the union and that they're willing to engage with the union. What do you say to that?
00:36Well, the council will invariably deny that they're hostile to trade unions, but we all should be judged by our actions.
00:44And judging this council by its actions, it is indeed a hostile, there are hostile actors in the council.
00:51Now it's not too late for the council to do the right thing, to intervene here and show some leadership.
00:57We are confident that our member has been treated unfairly.
01:02There was a whole number of issues raised for investigation, they were all dropped by our one issue.
01:07And they took their time in dealing with this issue that they said was important, but didn't act on any number of complaints and points that were raised by other workers about the issues at the heart of this view.
01:19We believe that this council are acting in bad faith. It's time for the very, very senior people to intervene now and don't have this council sullied with talk of union busting and hostile environments for workers and trade unionists.
01:35They have the opportunity to act now, we're open, we're always available to talk, but as of now we're in dispute with this council and we will escalate that to industrial action.
01:44How angry are our members?
01:46Our members are absolutely incensed. They would be angry anyhow had this come out of the blue, but the reality is they have been signposting this for almost two years.
01:57It really does coincide with the last big industrial action which delivered pay improvements.
02:03And we don't know, have the council been waiting a long time, but they have been at their work for a period of months.
02:09Not just this rep who they sacked, but previous reps who have been embroiled in processes that were nonsense processes in reality, dragging things out for months and months only to drop them in the end.
02:21This is the behaviour of a really aggressive private sector employer. It's not the behaviour we expect of councils that are funded by taxpayers and it needs to end.
02:35We will not tolerate this. Unite is the largest union in Britain and Ireland and we will put every single resource we have behind this campaign to have our rep reinstated. That's what needs to happen.
02:45So when are you going to ballot and what's the agenda there?
02:48We've served notice to the council of our intention to ballot as we're legally entitled to do. So we have to give them a week's notice of our intention to ballot and then we move swiftly into balloting our members for strike action.
03:01We will go straight to strike action and we know we have the support of our members to do that.