UniteLive's 12 days of Xmas: Organising solidarity in Lincoln

Each day throughout the holiday season, UniteLive will feature one of our twelve stories of the year. On the second day of Christmas, UniteLive pays tribute to a Unite rep who won a prestigious TUC award for his organising efforts back in October.

A meeting of a small group of like minded workers around a table resulted in Unite organising hundreds of new members across multiple sites, and one receiving an award from the TUC. 

The hard work of Unite rep Robert Smalley was recognised at the 2025 TUC Congress, when he received the “Organising Award” in Brighton.

Robert works at the Lincoln Bogie Service Centre (BSC). The workplace had a non-unionised branch of Siemens Mobility, with management saying no to any suggestion of entering a trade union agreement. 

Siemens Mobility employs more than 5,500 people across three UK manufacturing facilities and multiple further sites. It designs, delivers and maintains digital signalling and electrification systems for the East Coast Main Line and TransPennine routes, digital signalling and information systems for the Elizabeth line, digital main line trains for Thameslink and brand new tube trains for London’s Piccadilly line.

The lack of recognition was disappointing, however, thanks to the hard work of Robert, and the support of the union, over half of the full-time staff signed up to Unite within weeks. This was from zero members at the start, and led to an agreement being signed within months.

The TUC’s citation for the award says this amazing recruitment drive, “was achieved through Robert’s petitions and countless talks with colleagues, explaining the benefits of joining a union and distributing informative flyers to non-members. 

“He kept up a constant effort to promote the benefits of entering an agreement with Unite, organised the nomination process, and ensured coverage across the bargaining group by securing signatures and forms from nominees. Without his input, progress would have been far slower and an agreement might not exist today.”

The recognition agreement that Robert was instrumental in gaining covered workers on the factory floor who strip down, repair and then reassemble bogies will now have formal union recognition for vital areas like health and safety, pay negotiations and disciplinary hearings.

At the time Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “I’m pleased our members have won formal recognition at Siemens Mobility. Workers at its Lincoln factory now have the full support and backing of their union on pay claims, protecting and improving their terms and conditions and ensuring a safe workplace.

“There is power in a union and our members at Siemens are backed by the UK’s winning union, Unite. This new agreement will help to drive up the standard of jobs, pay and conditions for the workers.”

Thanks to Robert and Unite work members at the branch have a greater sense of security, something that has been particularly important with the site scheduled to close and move to Goole by May 2027. This will be a major inconvenience for nearly all employees, who face over an hour’s commute each way. 

Because of the new agreement between BSC and Unite a consultation was launched with options presented to staff that included redeployment with paid training for new skills, relocation to Goole with financial support or  including stamp duty and housing assistance or redundancy if no other option is viable.

Now there is an agreement in place Unite has been able to negotiate and secure better outcomes for all employees, not just union members, positively impacting over 200 people. 

The TUC also said that “Union membership has continued to rise, particularly in response to negative company decisions such as laying off 40 contractors and removing an additional break. 

“Robert’s efforts brought so much interest in representative roles that elections were held, resulting in five positions being filled—three workplace reps and two health and safety reps, covering both shifts. A recognition agreement was signed within months, and negotiations have already begun on the consultation, as well as pay discussions for the following year.”

In a video, played to the packed Congress Hall before the ceremony, Robert said, “It is really eye opening what  you can do with the support of the union.”

Robert said he has a “passion for looking after people,” explaining that he thinks “organising is massively important because I was always told “you can’t have a union here”, “we aren’t recognising the union here” and “unions are a waste of time”.

Robert said that it wasn’t until five of them sat around a table and said that they wanted to change things and started discussing trade unionism that they began to realise all the benefits that could come along with being in a union.

This was the lightbulb moment for Robert, who explained, “When people started to see that, and started to realise “Oh actually we can negotiate our own pay”, “Oh we can sort our own health and safety out.”

From that point there was no stopping him and, “We went from the single site recognition, which was in Lincoln, to all 20 sites in the UK.”

“So it’s gone from the 70 members we have here, to, I think, about 700.”

This is all, as Robert says, “through organisation and unionisation and just having one voice in solidarity.”

By Keith Hatch

Photo by Mark Thomas