Heart Unions week: 'We took a stand when we needed to'

This week, Unite is celebrating the TUC’s Heart Unions week. Each day this week on UniteLive, we’ll hear from Unite members how being in our union has made a huge difference in their lives.

Today, we look back at a UniteLive story from last year, where we spoke to Rolls-Royce Barnoldswick worker and Unite member Andrew Evans, who took strike action for the very first time in November 2020.

Although Andrew reluctantly joined the strike, he soon realised the difference it made. The striking Unite members not only won their fight, but secured a deal beyond their wildest dreams.

But the following summer, the Rolls-Royce Barnoldswick workers had to take a stand again, after the deal they’d worked so hard to secure was again under threat. Following targeted strike action, in November a new deal with even more enhanced protections was secured, ensuring the future of a proud site whose history stretches back decades.

Below Andrew Evans tells the story of how it all started.

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Talk to anyone who’s taken strike action, and they’ll tell you that it’s always a last resort. After all, strikes aren’t just disruptive for employers – they often take a heavy emotional and financial toll on workers too, and there’s never any guarantee of success.

Indeed, no one takes the decision to down tools lightly — and this couldn’t be more true than for Unite member and Rolls-Royce Barnoldswick worker Andrew Evans, who took strike action for the first time in his life in November 2020.

Andrew, who was born and bred in Barnoldswick, began working for Rolls-Royce nearly thirty years ago, when he started as an apprentice for the company in 1991. For many years, he’s worked in the aero-engines structures side of the company, presently known as SCAM, and he’s always felt a real sense of pride in his work and his employer.

“I’d been with this company since I left school. It’s all I’ve ever known, and the company on the whole had been good to us. Of course over the years we’ve had redundancies – and unfortunately sometimes compulsory redundancies — but for the most part they were usually not forced.”

‘It was like going into a big unknown’

So when management announced proposals to halt wide-cord fan blade production and outsource the work to Singapore, with the loss of 350 jobs, the news came as a shock.

Although Andrew did not work in the wide-cord fan blade side of the business, known as FBUK, and his job was not — at least then — under immediate threat, a big question mark hung over everyone’s future. There was a strong sense among the workforce that this was only the beginning.

So when Andrew and his colleagues at Rolls-Royce Barnoldswick were balloted for strike action, it was far from an easy decision to make.

“It was like going into a big unknown,” he told UniteLIVE. “Strikes don’t happen these days like they used to. Obviously we were a bit apprehensive. But for me, the way that things looked at that moment in time, it felt as if we were left with no other option really.”

As the date of the first planned strike drew nearer, Andrew and his colleagues held out hope that the company would be willing to negotiate.

“We’d sent a strong message with our ballot that we’d be willing to go out on strike if required,” Andrew explained. “That was the point that we thought, ‘surely they’ll come to the table and we’ll sort something out’. But then it became increasingly apparent that they weren’t going to budge.”

When the fated day November 6 arrived, Andrew’s initial reluctance over strike action gave way to  resolute determination.

“I thought, well we’re doing this now. We’ve agreed to do it, so we’ve got see it through. And as the strike went on, it dawned on me while this might not be the easiest thing to do, it was the right thing to do at that moment.

“There’s a lot of stigma with strikes and you really think to yourself, are we doing the right thing? And I felt that way up until we started strike action. But now that it’s happened and I’ve been through it, I think we did exactly the right thing. We took a stand when we needed to.”

‘Incredible camaraderie’

Andrew had never been on a picket line before, and he said at first it felt “a bit strange”. But then when he returned on the second day of the picket line, that feeling dissipated.

“It’s difficult to describe but you start to build this incredible camaraderie. I met people on the picket line that I’d never even met or spoken to before in the nearly 30 years I’ve worked for the same company. For me, as daft as it sounds, the strike really brought us closer together. Before, we were FBUK and SCAM, but now were are a genuinely united and proud Barnoldswick site – standing together as one.”

Although Andrew and his colleagues in SCAM had agreed to take strike action to defend their colleagues in FBUK, their own future was uncertain too. And their worst fears were confirmed when Rolls-Royce announced on December 3 plans to slash jobs in SCAM and outsource the work to ITP Aero in Spain.

“It was a very emotional day obviously,” Andrew recalled. “Knowing that you’ve given decades of your service to this company and just like that you’ve become surplus to requirements.

“I know that with everything that’s happened with the Covid pandemic – sometimes crises like this happen. But after all the time that you’ve put in over a number of years, it’s still a kick in the teeth.”

And it only further confirmed that taking strike action was the right thing to do, Andrew noted. Still, the going wasn’t easy.

“I consider myself to be quite mentally strong but this whole ordeal really tested me to the limit sometimes,” he said.

“Throughout the dispute even well before the strikes, when we first learned that our future was at risk, it was really tough. You had your good days and bad days; it was always up and down. Obviously you bring it home with you so it’s with you all the time, it’s always hanging over you — that feeling that everything you’ve worked for, for so many years, could all be gone in an instant.”

But even when things felt hopeless, Andrew and his colleagues kept on fighting — with their union Unite and their local community 100 per cent behind them.

“The support we got from the local community was very important in keeping us together and keeping us going,” Andrew said. “I’m not huge on technology but I also began to realise the power of social media and how it told our story and pushed out our message far and wide.”

‘Phenomenal’ win

After all their efforts — with members striking and mobilising rallies that drew widespread support; and with Unite reps and officers working tirelessly behind the scenes to negotiate with management – the unthinkable happened: a deal was struck. And it wasn’t just any deal that temporarily preserved a few hundred jobs – it actually paved the way for a long-term, bright future.

 As part of the original deal, there was a two-year guarantee of no compulsory redundancies, with 350 jobs secured as the very minimum headcount. The deal also secured a whole decade of guaranteed on-site manufacturing. A new Centre of Excellence training school will be established, to re-skill the current workforce and train future apprentices, engineers, and designers in advanced green technology skills of the future. And new deal agreed last November after a second series of strikes in the summer further enhanced the original deal.

“Considering where we were, and considering where we are now, I think it’s phenomenal. And obviously Unite’s role in this was enormous. They put political pressure, industrial pressure, media pressure — all sorts of pressure coming from all directions to help us secure this outcome.”

During Heart Unions week this week, Andrew couldn’t be prouder to be a Unite member.

“I can’t say enough good things about Unite. Before all this, I didn’t really know what unions did but I certainly do now. I’ve since been on to my partner, telling her you’ve got to join a union – you just never know when you might need it. Now that I’ve had personal experience of what a union can do, I can’t stress how important it is.”

By Hajera Blagg

You can share youre union story on social media using the hashtags #HeartUnions #EveryWorkerNeedsaUnion

Stay tuned to UNITElive for more on Hearts Union this week